Why didn't Microsoft, back in the 90s, have an app store that businesses had to pay for to sell Windows applications in?

I mean, it's certainly not for lack of business insight. And you don't need the internet to sell applications.

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asadotzler 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Downloading software over dial-up speeds of 14.4 kbps to 28.8 kbps sucked, and most businesses weren't large enterprises so didn't have T1s (which were themselves only 1.5 Mbps) so sending the office manager across town to Circuit City to buy a boxed copy of some piece of software made sense. The app stores of the 90s were "third party" and physical and covered the needs and capabilities of 90s companies. The other "app store" was even more indirect, software makers paying PC sellers to pre-install.

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whstl 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's how Game consoles operated, so there was definitely precedent.

But it took until 93-94 for Windows to actually become dominant enough to have such leverage, some argue that this only really happened with Windows 95. Since it was an open ecosystem for almost a decade at that point, changing was hard.

The Apple AppStore was different, it was launched after the iPhone shipped 13 million units and "only allowed web apps".

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jrowen 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It could be argued that it was part of "embrace, extend, extinguish" to attract developers to the platform by keeping it open. They would just figure out how to capitalize on anything that got big enough, much like Google.

Apple really pioneered the walled garden (which I would assume was previously taken to be shooting yourself in the foot), and it's proven to resonate with the wider less tech-savvy population.

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rimunroe 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> And you don't need the internet to sell applications.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? I don't know how you'd sell them otherwise. How do you do you process a payment without a network connection? The only thing I can think of is offering a catalog in the OS which users could browse and physically order stuff from, but I wouldn't call that a store.

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whstl 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Even back then, game console manufacturers had licensing agreements with developers, so those developers had to pay royalties, even though distribution was handled by physical stores.

In some cases, some console manufacturers even handled the manufacturing of cartridges/CDs and the distribution side too.

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rimunroe 2 days ago | parent [-]

Sorry, I'm a little confused about the relevance here. Could you elaborate a bit on how it ties into what I was saying? How did the users view products, how did they purchase them, and how did they receive them?

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whstl 2 days ago | parent [-]

You asked how a company could sell (presumably third-party) apps without internet. I gave an example of it happening. Money-wise the model was very similar to Apple's AppStore.

> How did the users view products, how did they purchase them, and how did they receive them?

For the specific case of games, it was mainly via physical stores but I'm sure there were other methods such as catalogs, especially internationally.

EDIT: Remember GP is talking about the 90s and without internet, so it doesn't mean an app store where the app is instantly in your possession after clicking a button.

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rimunroe 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Remember GP is talking about the 90s and without internet, so it doesn't mean an app store where the app is instantly in your possession after clicking a button.

Right, but how is that an app store and not just a catalog?

…am I fully misunderstanding and they just meant a physical store?

	▲	whstl 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I just provided some information, use it as you want. I'm not really in this website to have an argument.

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ThrowMeAway1618 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? I don't know how you'd sell them otherwise. How do you do you process a payment without a network connection? The only thing I can think of is offering a catalog in the OS which users could browse and physically order stuff from, but I wouldn't call that a store.

Not GP but, processing payments absolutely does not require a network connection. Doing so is absolutely not nearly as convenient, but in my adult lifetime it was pretty normal for retailers to pick up a phone, give a customer service rep and/or automated call handler CC info and dollar amounts and get appropriate confirmations.

As for a business without an OS interface not being a "store," that's ridiculous on its face. If that were true, we'd have to call 7/11 or any similar place (like those at most gas stations) convenience "locations with items for sale but not a store, because stores are only places with catalogs in my OS," and "places which sell stuff but aren't stores because rimunroe says they can't be a 'store' without a catalog in their OS."

Touch grass, friend.

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rimunroe 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Not GP but, processing payments absolutely does not require a network connection. Doing so is absolutely not nearly as convenient, but in my adult lifetime it was pretty normal for retailers to pick up a phone, give a customer service rep and/or automated call handler CC info and dollar amounts and get appropriate confirmations.

I forgot about phone payments, but that doesn't change my argument. If it's a built in listing of products, it presumably needs to be updated occasionally too, which I'm not sure how you'd do without mailing disks if you didn't have a network connection. I also don't know how you'd make room for the bundled software. My memory of my Windows 3.1 machine involves a lot of wishing I had more space on my HDD.

> As for a business without an OS interface not being a "store," that's ridiculous on its face.

That indeed would be absurd. Fortunately, I never argued this. I argued that without taking payments or distributing the software through the "store", I don't think it would qualify as a store but would qualify as a catalog. I think of a store as somewhere you go to exchange money for goods/services. If it's doing neither of those things is it still a store?

> Touch grass, friend.

I don't know why you felt this hostility was warranted. Did I slight you in some way?

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Gracana 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You can probably bet that the dumbest possible interpretation of someone's argument is not what they had in mind.

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ryandrake 2 days ago | parent [-]

There wasn't an argument. The OP was just asking a (presumably honest) and simple question: How do you do you process a payment without a network connection?

I can understand how someone under, say, 30, might not know how commerce happened before the Internet. My 13 year old can't believe there was even once a world without the Internet.

	▲	rimunroe 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> I can understand how someone under, say, 30, might not know how commerce happened before the Internet. I remember those days, but I think most people would call something where you viewed a list of products and then called or mailed to order and received the product elsewhere a catalog, not a store. As for over-the-phone payments, I forgot about that method for a moment but don't think it meaningfully affects my argument. It's just as out-of-band as the mail order example I included.
	▲	Gracana 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I was referring to ThrowMeAway's response to rimunroe. "That's ridiculous on its face" is a clue that they meant something different.

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downrightmike 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Moving megabytes and then gigabytes were really expensive and error prone. physical media was faster and practically no error.