For past few months, Chinese site cnBeta has been releasing alleged screenshots of Windows 8. Now they have released the screenshots of Windows App Store, showing functionality similar to Apple’s App store and Ubuntu Software Center. From what was show, we can hope that one will be able to download a vast number of applications, ranging from games to office applications. It may also host lot of free and paid applications by the time it launches.
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It was rumored that the next version of Windows will be shipped with this new App Store. And if we read get the translation correctly from the Chinese site (cnBeta), this new app store has passed its internal tests and will soo go beta
This Window App Store looking similar to Apple’s app store, we cannot help, but wonder if this is the reason Microsoft has been fighting Apple so hard about trademarking the App Store moniker. However, considering the move made by Apple to sue Amazon for the use of the name “App Store”, Microsoft could also get into trouble with Apple for using the name. Apple maintains it should have control over the App Store name, though Microsoft is contending the challenge.
Let’s hope this new move by Microsoft will open the floodgate to a whole bunch of cheaper software, giving people more choices in choosing applications and helps to reduce piracy.