Apple's Walled Garden

Walled Gardens are becoming a real discussion point ...
Obviously this is Microsoft's view but it is still quite interesting.

Microsoft: Apple's walled garden isn't its main app issue:
Microsoft's coroporate VP for Windows web services has told TechRadar that he believes that is not Apple's walled garden that upsets consumers, but the Cupertino-based giant's decision to not allow apps that compete with its own products on its store. Speaking at a round-table, Antoine LeBlond was asked by TechRadar is the decision of Microsoft to have its own store would bring criticisms of creating its own walled garden. But LeBlonde insisted that it was important to dig a little deeper into what people expect from their app stores.

Walled gardens

"The funny thing is that I think you have to dig a little bit into the walled garden argument because there are a lot of different parts to it," he said. "There really, truly is a pure philosophical point of view that says 'I should be able to create and distribute an app that has all kinds of horrible things in it no matter how horrible they are' and I don't really know what to say about that." "I think what frustrates people with Apple's model in particular is that they have carved out some specific things for their own ownership, so the fact that you can't build an app that sells music, you can't distribute a competing browser [although this is actually possible], you can't distribute a mail app - those are the things that become frustrating to people. "There's that and then there's the economic side of it that says you can't distribute an app where you acquire subscriptions without sharing 30 per cent of fees with Apple. "It's a pretty drastic constraint on developers."

Microsoft Store

LeBlond believes that Microsoft has avoided these pitfalls with its own offering, as Windows 8 makes its long-awaited public debut. "We've taken a very different approach to this," he added. "We're happy with having stores in our store, we're happy having mail apps, browser apps. "If you read our terms and policies we're not carving places out for ourselves."