With the holidays rapidly approaching, I wanted to confirm that the Windows Phone Store will be open for business during the holiday timeframe. Since the launch of Windows Phone 8 in late October, we are experiencing a sustained 40% increase in Windows Phone app submissions. To meet this increase in app submission volume and maintain our certification processing turnaround times for developers, we will have our full staff on-hand throughout the holiday period (read on for details).
While we have made a number of improvements in Certification app ingestion and workflow with the new Windows Phone Store infrastructure, we continue to recommend that you allow 5 business days for your app to be certified during the holiday timeframe. To help set expectations, we suggest submitting your apps by the dates in the following table, so that your apps are available during the holidays.
Holiday closure | No app testing | Last submission (Assuming 5 business day SLA) |
Christmas | Monday, 12/24 Tuesday, 12/25 | Monday, 12/17 |
New Year’s Day | Tuesday, 1/1 | Friday, 12/21 |
If you haven’t had a chance to do so yet, the holidays might be just the right time to download the new SDK and check out the Windows Phone 8 platform. We’ve just conducted an online Jump Start training event. The event recordings are available to help you get started.
We look forward to working with you to get your new Windows Phone apps in the hands of your target audience this holiday season. We can’t wait to see what you’ve created.