Announcing the DevStore!

We have been working hard during this year on extending Visual Studio 2010 to support the in-product selling and buying of extensions in a very easy and smooth way and we are proud to announce today the upcoming availability of the DevStore!

Yes, it actually works as good as it looks

You can purchase paid extensions with a single click (paid via PayPal first, Amazon Payments, Google Checkout and credit cards later based on user feedback). You can read and write reviews right there in the Extension Manager too. And of course, there will be still a dedicated DevStore web site where you can browse for all available extensions.

With the same ease you can also publish your VS extension to the DevStore for others to purchase. All you need to do is add a couple additional entries into the manifest file for your extension (i.e. purchase price and, optionally, upgrade price) and then right click on the extension project and select “Publish to DevStore”:

Easy, ugh?

We look forward to having everyone interested in extending Visual Studio and participating in the DevStore: big and small component vendor shops, VSX experts, independent consultants, hobbyists, bloggers, and pretty much anyone that has developed content for VS and would like to get paid for it

Again, don’t think about this opportunity just for the usual known shops out there, think, for example, of a blogger that has put lots of time writing guidance, samples, best practices, etc. on a particular technology. He can now package that knowledge as a VS extension (i.e. a VS template, source code, library, documents, or any kind of tooling), and publish it in the DevStore asking for as little as $0.99 and get something in return for the time he spent. Some people is already doing this today with PayPal donations but the DevStore can significantly improve this and make the experience much easier and friendlier.

And we’ve been dreaming about some other possibilities too.

Imagine component vendors offering their “big products” split into pieces through the DevStore, instead of purchasing the usual “Big Components Pack” including 40 controls, of which you only need 2 or 3, you could individually purchase just the controls you’re interested in.

Or how about renting a product that you’re going to use just for this short 2-months project you just got?

And why limit what you can purchase to extensions only? Why not purchase other stuff, like a book… or individual book chapter… or even consulting hours?

We would love to get your feedback about what you would like to see supported in the DevStore, post your ideas on the forum and let us know!

Checkout the video we recorded showing the end-to-end experience:

WoVS DevStore

Right now we’re running a closed beta with a bunch of extension developers that are helping us get the bits ready for public availability in January 2011. If you are interested in publishing your content in the DevStore please send us an email and we will get you on our beta program so you can try out the DevStore.

Thanks!