Report: Microsoft To Unveil App Store, MobileMe Clones In February

Microsoft may unveil two mobile services February designed to counter Apple’s iPhone App Store and MobileMe, a blog claimed Monday.

Citing unnamed “sources close to Microsoft,” Neowin claims the software giant will unveil SkyMarket and SkyBox at next month’s Mobile World Congress.

SkyMarket, like Apple’s App Market, will offer a site for Windows Mobile users to download applications. In September, Microsoft began advertising for a Product Manager for SkyMarket. The service would be tied to Redmond’s Windows Mobile 7.

SkyBox would mimic Apple’s MobileMe service, permitting users to sync photos and other data. SkyBox reportedly won’t require the Windows Mobile software.

Along with the two services, Microsoft may introduce Windows Mobile 6.5, including and updated screen and improved interface. The introduction could signal Microsoft’s ground-breaking Windows Mobile 7 will not appear in 2009 as expected.

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Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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Paul
How innovative of them!
Cyxodus
Their next project will be Skynet.
Ian
Proving once again how unimaginative Microsoft is.
They even tried to copy features in Leopard and failed.
Give it up Microsoft. You’re a dinosaur doomed for extinction.
Shawen Donnellan
I am sure it will be a quarter as good for half of the price.
Bill Coleman
Don’t be so down on Microsoft. Mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery.
http://www.themacdeal.com Russell
The MobileMe service has been great… although I still can’t seem to get the calendar to sync properly with the service. The fact that it is so well integrated into both OS X and iPhone/iPod touch is going to make it very difficult for Microsoft to compete — especially with how slow Windows Mobile handsets tend to be.