[1]Tim Anderson wrote about what Embarcadero are planning for Delphi and Windows 8 [2] after meeting with Embarcadero’s John Ray Thomas [3] and Jason Vokes [4], I encourage you to go over and read his article about what they’re planning, and his reservations.
In short, since Delphi XE3 can’t pass validation as a WinRT app [5] and be fully accepted on the Windows Store [6], they aim for a combination of having only a shortcut to the app vendor’s site in the Windows Store (like other vendors will do), and using a PowerShell [7] script to sign the app. As Tim outlines, this isn’t exactly what you would call a smooth ride, and will require the Windows 8 Entreprise SKU [8] apparently (thus ruling out consumer apps, i.e. would it even be possible to write the next Skype in Delphi?).
Of course if Windows 8 fails as spectacularly as some think it could, all this would be moot points, but even a Vista-like failure would still end up putting hundreds of millions of Win8 copies out there, and the success of the Apple Store [9] and Google Play [10] are clear sign that a bundled, official applications store become highly prominent.
Sure, Apple doesn’t allow alternate stores, but Google does, yet, there is no Android store that comes even close to competing with Google Play. There are so far no signs that this could be different in the Windows space, and actually, the only established store in the Windows space (Steam) seems desperately refocusing towards Linux [11]. And Embarcadero’s own AppWave [12] doesn’t seem to be making waves either.
And sorry for the political considerations lately, this blog will get back to technical stuff shortly 😉