Unless Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky is a big fat liar, it looks like he’s just confirmed a Windows 8 app store in his post about the many teams involved in the project. If you look in the bullet-pointed list, it’s somewhere between ‘App Compatibility and Device Compatibility’ and ‘Blimey, We Have Quite a Lot of Teams, Don’t We?’

As is often the case, Apple leads and Microsoft goes “woof” before pissing up a tree and eventually following, but I’m glad it’s doing so in this case. Although I have some problems with the Mac App Store (very passive update alerts, slightly too strict entry requirements, odd bugs when it comes to upgrading from beta software), the general experience of using the store is excellent.

On Windows, installing software isn’t quite the nightmare that some people make it out to be, but it’s rarely better than the ‘mount DMG/drag to /Applications’ dance Mac users put up with, and it’s certainly more hassle than clicking ‘install’ and twiddling your thumbs for a bit. The question is whether Microsoft can ape Apple’s user-experience rather than just the concept. I can’t imagine Microsoft would have a great deal of trouble populating its app store, but it might have problems in focussing and in saying ‘no’ (say, to large companies who want options for install numbers and so on, versus Apple’s ‘take it or leave it’ approach). Time will tell, but of all the things mentioned in Sinofsky’s list, the app store is the most exciting for me.