Microsoft To Limit Number Of Apps Published A Day?

So it seems that Microsoft will be instilling a new policy whereby they are limiting the number of apps a developer can publish a day to a maximum of 20. This does not mean that the developer cannot submit more than 20 apps, but as far as being certified, they will only be allowed a maximum of 20. Continue reading after the break to check out the excerpt taken from the Windows Phone Developer Blog.

In recent weeks a handful of companies have individually published hundreds of apps in a matter of a few days. We call this bulk publishing. While these apps meet our certification requirements and give consumers a wider selection of content, we’re also finding that publishing them in bulk degrades our customers’ experience. By publishing hundreds of apps in a short amount of time, the popular “New” Marketplace list category fills quickly, pushing the other new apps out and reducing the diversity of the shopping experience.

Microsoft’s philosophy is that an app marketplace should balance quality, choice and variety with a great customer experience – which includes easy shopping and discoverability. We offer customers thousands of apps and games, and we don’t want to compromise the quality of our shared customers’ experiences in using – or shopping for – any one of those apps. We’ve evaluated the impact of bulk publishing, reviewed some very thoughtful input from both our user base and our developer community and concluded that we need to take the following steps to restore the balance of choice and experience.

To avoid the scenario where bulk publishing crowds out other apps in Marketplace in the future, effective immediately, we are limiting the number of apps any one developer can have certified in a single day to 20.  Developers creating a large number of apps can still submit all of them for certification, but they will be certified at a maximum rate of 20 per day rather than all at once.  This change helps us retain a balance of choice and customer experience by enabling customers to see a broader and more representative assortment of new apps from the developer community when they see “New” apps every day. As with all policies, the limit is subject to change based on the ongoing evolution of Marketplace and input from customers and developers.