Microsoft's Windows Store data shows strong demand for productivity apps

Want to dominate a bestseller list in the Windows Store? It’s time to get down to business, then: This month’s update to Windows Store trends show the biggest opportunity for apps is with productivity, which has the best downloads-versus-available apps ratio among available categories.

Even better: There seems to be about twice as much interest, gauging by “engagement,” in using the Store to buy, install, and manage software.

The Windows Store team offers monthly looks into what metrics across devices, operating systems, and other key categories.

Unfortunately, there’s few hard numbers included in the breakdown, so it’s tough to see how big the opportunity actual is if business software developers choose to go through Microsoft’s official channels.

The Microsoft team said the Windows Store had 1.25 billion visits, which is a nice, big number but since I accidentally clicked into it 10 times this morning, I’m guessing it might be slightly inflated.

The team did tout that “engagement” with the store is double in Windows 10 over Windows 8, which is good but, again, without full numbers it’s tough to parse.

One interesting note: In-app purchases, rather than a paid apps, dominate spending even on desktop and tablet devices (this is noted on a separate “trends” page):

Another sign that ongoing services, not one-off sales, are the way things are moving in the business of software.