Windows Phone Marketplace Re-Opens For Business

Windows Phone Marketplace is open for developers again, after Microsoft fixed a digital certificate problem which caused it to close the app store earlier this week.

The Windows Phone Marketplace, which had climbed to more than 100,000 apps, had to close t5o developers earlier this week when digital certificate difficulty caused trouble for  users downloading apps onto phones which had upgraded to Windows Phone 7.5. The problem is now fixed, and apps will be republished over the next couple of days, according to an updated blog post

Windows Phone back

“We fixed the digital certificate problem and last evening resumed publishing new apps,” said Todd Brix. “It will take a day or two for the repair to fully deploy and newly-published apps to begin appearing in Marketplace again.  If your app was in the process of being published, you don’t need to take any action.”

Microsoft needs to have the Marketplace available, as Windows Phone is about to start a phase of active marketing, but is starting on the back foot, with data from IDC showing that it is trailing behind BlackBerry and even Nokia’s de-selected OS Symbian in terms of shipments. Windows-based phones accounted for just 3.5 percent of all mobile shipments in the second quarter of 2012.

Windows Phone 8 is due to release soon, and Nokia has booked a 5 September press announcement, which is expected to be its first Windows Phone 8 device. Earlier in July,  Microsoft launched the Windows Phone Dev Center.

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