Microsoft’s Missed Opportunities with its Own Software in the Windows Store

One of the goals Microsoft has with Windows 10 is to increase the traction inside the Windows Store. The company wants consumers and businesses to use the Windows Store to download apps, games and soon, extensions, but the company is missing basic opportunities to get more users into its store with its own software.

At this time, you cannot buy or renew your Office 365 subscription, buy Skype credits, or purchase/renew Xbox Live subscriptions or redeem Xbox Live codes from within the store. All of these digital services require that you go to a different web page to buy the product, and it is a huge oversight by Microsoft to not include these features inside its desktop digital store.

If you open the Windows store and search for Office 365, it will take you to Microsoft store website instead of allowing you to complete the purchase inside the app. If you search Xbox Live, no relevant results are returned and the same is for Skype credits.

The company currently doesn’t offer the ability to buy hardware goods inside of its store either, which makes some sense as the Windows store is targeted at digital goods, but the fact that you can’t buy software subscriptions is a missed opportunity to drive more traffic to its store. To simplify its content offerings by putting all of its digital services into one storefront would improve discoverablity by consumers who are visiting the store at elevated frequency compared to Windows 8 and yet, the company has failed to put several of its hero products, Office and Xbox Live, into this digital showcase.

I was hoping that Microsoft would talk about expanding the Store at its Build conference last week. But after the keynotes were completed and I attended a couple of sessions that might explain why you can’t buy these digital goods inside the store, I wasn’t able to find a reason for why these products are not included.