According to the Microsoft-related blog I Started Something, Microsoft is in the process of building a mobile applications marketplace codenamed "Skymarket," and could launch it along with Windows Mobile 7 as early as 2009. The blog pointed to Microsoft job postings seeking product managers to oversee the "launch of a v1 marketplace service for Windows Mobile," which would be aimed at "developers wishing to distribute and monetize their Windows Mobile applications."
For Microsoft channel partners who"ve been nervously watching the galloping success of Apple"s iPhone, such a marketplace would be both welcome and long overdue. "It sounds like a natural response to Apple"s wildly successful iPhone marketplace on iTunes," said Scott Stanfield, CEO of Vertigo Software, a Richmond, Calif.-based development firm.