Marketplace will have 600 apps at launch

Inevitably, all app stores will be compared to Apple's App Store. Never mind that Windows Mobile has had apps for sale back when Steve Jobs was saying he'd never build a phone. But consolidating all the apps under the Microsoft umbrella presents some interesting quandaries. Submitting your app to Windows Marketplace for Mobile means following Microsoft's guidelines, and that can mean changes to an app that's used on Windows Mobile for some time, lest you end up on the banned list.

We've already spoken to a few developers, who appeared more than eager to hop on board. And they're not alone. Audrey Zolghadr, Windows Mobile product manager at Microsoft France, says in an interview with MobiFrance [via] that there will be 600 apps in the Marketplace when it launches later this year. (Here are just a few names that were previously announced.) That's a paltry sum compared to the 20,000 apps actually floating around for Windows phones, but it's definitely a good start.