“Is Windows 8 really that simple?” That’s the question Microsoft Portugal is trying to answer with a YouTube video slowly making the rounds on social media (I first saw of it shared by Matt Cavanagh). The 3 minute ad asserts Windows 8 is simple with footage of an interesting stunt at a real electronics store selling Windows 8 PCs.

The premise of the stunt is that curious shoppers are asked to wait for a “small demonstration” of Windows 8 by a store expert. The expert turns out to be a kid with a foldable foot stool, much of to the surprise and amusement of guests. He proceeds to run through several live demos of Windows 8 on a touch laptop.

My first reaction is that this is a very entertaining and charismatic way of making a case at an emotional level. For the people who were actually part of the stunt, it may have been an educational experience. But for those watching this video like myself, it’s more or less a collection of gasps and smiles. Warm and fuzzy, yes. Proving a point, not really.

However this might explain why Microsoft is slow to expand its retail presence around the world as they train an army of kids for product demonstrations.

And no, SQL Express 2012 is not in Web Platform Installer.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that the Surface would finally make its third-party retail availability in two countries. The first and most obviously is the United States, no explanation required. The second however was not typical of Microsoft, Australia. As a continent country which has consistently missed out on Microsoft products and services, this is a sign.

I have heard many stories of just what the internationalization (or there lack-of) strategy used to be at Microsoft from several ex-employees. As interesting and horrifying as those are, it’s water under the bridge compared to the current reality – Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and the Surface have done exceptionally well in Australia.

The first piece of the puzzle – advertising, has been incredibly strong. I’ve seen Windows 8 and Windows 8 PC ads on digital billboards, posters, every electronic retailer’s brochures. I’ve seen Windows Phone 8 advertising on full-page newspapers prints, on TV and featured front-and-centre for many carriers.

Last but not least, I’ve seen Surface ads all over Melbourne. It was on a bus I took yesterday, at two train stations which I ride past every morning, at several busy road intersections and airports. In fact I haven’t even seen nearly as many iPad or iPhone ads.

Of course I’m not the only one to see these ads. I’m consistently surprised by how many of my friends who previously and otherwise would never bring up Microsoft products have bought Windows Phone 8 phones and Surfaces. I’m no longer the only one with Microsoft devices in these social circles.

Beginning Friday, two of Australia’s biggest electronics retailers Harvey Norman and JB Hi Fi will begin displaying and selling the Surface RT in stores.

I’ve been trying to confirm whether these will be the fancy iPad-esque displays with its own stand to separate it from the other PCs en masse, but I haven’t heard back yet. However I have been able to confirm retailers will be stocking the full set of accessories in their stores too.

Currently both retailers are selling Surface RTs at recommended retail price (RRP) – the same as Microsoft, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do discounts closer to or after the Christmas rush.

Even though there are still areas where Australian suport is lacking, notably region-locked features in Windows Phone 8 including no full-resolution photo backups to SkyDrive (WTF this one) and content on Xbox, but having a product in people’s hands is better than nothing at all.

With app reviews like the one above, it was pretty obvious my startup’s Windows Phone application wasn’t working. But why it wasn’t working has baffled us, Nokia’s technical experts and Microsoft’s Windows Phone developer evangelists up until just a few days ago when we finally got to the bottom of it: a Windows Phone Store bug.

The SoundGecko Windows Phone app launched with a little bit of fanfare in mid-September as a result of user requests and, well, my own demand.

It wasn’t always apparent that the app had a huge breaking issue because the apps deployed to our testing phones through Visual Studio worked perfectly. And the fact that it passed through the otherwise-extremely-strict Windows Phone Store certification process (several times), there was no reason to doubt their seal of approval.

When we started getting in emails by the horde about why it wasn’t working, I started investigating. The application on Windows Phone 7 would launch and navigate, but when you tried to play the audio, it would not. It wasn’t until much later we found out it crashed at launch for Windows Phone 8.

After several dozen emails to Nokia, Microsoft Australia and Microsoft US, they could all reproduce the issue but no one had any idea why. No one really seemed to care either – why fix one app when you can get 100 new apps by running a competition?

It was only after I ran into a few friends on the Windows Phone team at BUILD 2012 last month that someone actually committed to helping us fixing the issue, instead of sweeping it under the carpet. Only this week they identified a potential issue – “a bug in the store pipeline“. Yikes.

The actual problem as it turns out is that “background audio” is not properly detected by the Windows Phone Store’s “capabilities detector”. As a security measure, this process exists to overwrite the declared app capabilities by the developer (in the manifest) by analysing the source code of the app submitted to the Store. The problem is it hasn’t worked correctly since 2011 it seems.

The capability “ID_CAP_MEDIALIB” is necessary for our app to function, but the capabilities detector never figures that out. The workaround is to add a single line of arbitrary code, code that has no use to our app, that the detector will identify and add the required capability. For shits and giggles, it is:

Five days later, today, with an app store review of 1 star in several markets, the update with the workaround was finally approved by certification (what the hell were they testing before). The working app is now in the Store.

For the several thousands users who have so far downloaded the Windows Phone app, I’m sorry for any inconveniences caused. I hope you’ll get the update, try the app again and update your reviews.

Microsoft Australia today announced a “December of Apps Developer Challenge” on its La La Ninja developer community website. Developers have the chance to win one of 40 Asus Vivo Tab RT tablets. Although the competition seems to make a great Christmas present, it’s unfortunate Microsoft is once again promoting quantity over quality for an app development competition.

Like some of the Windows Phone app competitions before it hosted in Australia and around the world, Microsoft is once again incentivising app developers prioritize quantity and speed, over what I’d argue is the hallmark of Apple’s app ecosystems, quality.

Since some blogs and even Microsoft evangelists love to spell out the large and growing number of apps in the Windows Store, peeking at a majority of the new submissions on MetroStore leaves much to be desired. (Seriously, some of the apps have the default template cross icon.)

Admittedly this is a problem that affects all app ecosystems, I just think it’s misguided that Microsoft’s developer evangelists are actively promoting this practice with prize incentives.

• Qualifying apps must be published in the Windows Store between December 1st 2012 and 12 Midnight AEDST December 28th 2012.
• The sooner you publish your new apps the sooner you’ll receive your device. Devices will be delivered within 30 days of accomplishing the challenge.
• Publish 4 new apps for a Asus Vivo Tab RT. The offer is limited to 1 Asus Vivo Tab RT per developer.
• Apps must be new and published to the public Windows Store, and excludes updates to existing apps.

At a rate of one app per week with absolutely no criteria or judgement of quality factors such as functionality, usefulness and design, the addition of the first come first serve clause makes this pretty much a race to the bottom.

Commenter Phillip Haydon adds, “4 apps in such a short timeline, promotes people to create shit quality apps. I’m really disappointed this competition exists. You should be getting people to create high quality applications that actually benefit end-users.”

Well…, David, Winston and I will be working on many updates to MetroTwit for Windows 8, but we’ll just have to wish for an Asus Vivo Tab RT under our Christmas trees.

Update: On a serious note, Microsoft knows how to run and has run quality-based competitions. Award winners by people and judge’s votes, by ratings or by downloads.

Remeber this? Microsoft’s cringe-worthy training video for hosting your own “Windows 7 launch party”.

Reddit commenter “Commit_Suicide” decided to take the plot even further by writing a little amusing but somewhat depressing fan-fiction story. A bit of light-hearted reading for the weekend.

The flyer was key. It had to be eye-catching, but not gaudy, well-designed, but casual looking. Inviting, but professional. Frank spent about 10 hours on it. He pinned it up on the bulletin board in the lobby of his apartment complex, front and center. Impossible to miss.

He spent the first night waiting up next to his phone, browsing Microsoft’s youtube channel for party ideas. Nobody called, and he was a little disappointed, but it was to be expected. The party wasn’t for three more weeks. The following morning he went down to the lobby first thing and checked to see if anyone had taken one of the tear-away strips with his phone number on them. No one had.

Understandable. Yes. The party was a long way off. The important thing, right now, was to plan out activities. RSVPs would come, in time.

The web chatting activity seemed most promising. He could demonstrate it to his guests and then at the end of the activity, casually exchange usernames with them. That way, he could keep in touch with his neighbors after the launch party. Ten years in the same place is an awful long time without getting to know your neighbors. Maybe that would finally change.

Three days on, Frank practically lived by his bedside table. Where the phone was. He thought the photo editing activity would be fun to try — he could have his guests take some pictures and then they would all fool around with them. It would be a lot of fun. And after the party, those pictures would be his way of remembering the fun they had together.

One day about a week before the party, Frank was in the lobby checking to make sure his flyer was still up when he saw the pretty woman from unit 313. He swallowed his anxiety and asked her if she was planning on going to the launch party.

“Wha… party…?” She stammered, shaking her head.

“The party I’m throwing on the 17th. For Windows 7,” he explained.

The woman blinked. “I don’t really–” she started. Then after an awkward pause: “I’m not much of a computer person, really? Uh, maybe some other time…”

And then she was gone.

Frank stood in front of his mirror and practiced explaining the features of Windows 7. There was a lot to go over. He wrote a script and tried to memorize it, but even reading it aloud to himself, he stammered and sweated. This was going to be tough. But worth it. Tough, but worth it. “Now, t-the frap sneat– snap feature… uh… godammit, wait–”

stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid—-

The party was in five days. No one had called. He used a sharpie to add his cell phone number to the tear-away strips on the flyer, just in case someone tried him while he was away from the phone. Though he never left the apartment anyway. He decided that he wanted to do the music burning activity, and he spent 12 hours making the perfect playlist. Fun music to show he was a fun guy. But not too fun. They had to respect him.

No one was taking the tear-away strips. Why? Maybe they didn’t realize they could take them. He added a big, boldface notice to the bottom of the flyer: PLEASE TAKE ONE!!!

Please take one.

The party was in two days. The deadline he had set for RSVPs had come and gone. So he crossed out the deadline on the flyer and added in: RSVP anytime!

Maybe if there was time, he would show them how to record TV shows to the computer. That was a natural conversation starter — they could talk about the different shows they liked. Frank’s favorite show was Burn Notice. He was a lot like Michael Weston. He even looked like him. If he lost a little weight he could be a stunt double, even.

No one had taken the strips. No one had called. Maybe they had simply forgotten. It happens. He decided not to send guests away if they showed up unannounced.

Frank believed that refreshments were the most important part of any respectable party. They had to be premium quality, and presented with elegance. So he sunk a couple hundred bucks into a crystal punch bowl, and the sales clerk had talked him into buying the matching crystal goblet set, too. It was all very fancy, the perfect thing for his party. But between that and the copy of Windows 7 he bought, he was a little bit behind. If he hadn’t gone down to the lobby to check the flyer on the day of the party, he would have missed the disconnect notice that the power company taped to his front door. If his guests had seen that, it would have been so embarrassing.

Day of. He laid out platters of vegetables, crackers, and dip, filled the punch bowl with sparkling cider, and made sure both his computers were in working order. He went over his itinerary for the evening, his scripts, and he didn’t stutter very much at all anymore.

And he spent the rest of the night sitting on his couch. Excitement turning to anxious worry turning to a dead-eyed, abject despair. He wondered where his life had gone. He thought about the gun in his bedside drawer. He looked at the glinting crystal punch bowl and just, hated, everything about himself. At 11:35 PM both of his computers restarted to install automatic updates, closing all the programs he had set up for the party.

Frank stood up, threw one of the crystal goblets against the wall, and went to bed.

The next morning he slipped into the lobby when no one would see him and took down the flyer. And he just hated everything about himself. Even more. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He didn’t even like Windows 7 — he still preferred XP. Older, but dependable. Like him. He was dependable. People would know that, if they got to know him. They would.

This gives me an idea to host a Windows 8 launch party…