Microsoft could be developing own ad platform for Windows 8 apps

Software maker Microsoft, understandably, wants its share of  the mobile advertising pie and could be working on a new mobile advertising platform. Like Apple’s ailing iAd – boosted with today’s promotion of iTunes chief Eddy Cue to head of online services – or Google-owned AdMob, the yet unnamed platform should let developers inject Microsoft-served adverts inside apps that will run on upcoming Windows 8 mobile devices, smartphones and tablets in particular. It will give programmers yet another option, but could also prove problematic for Google, which pretty much owns the mobile advertising space.

According to Fusible, the Redmond, Washington-headquartered software behemoth on August 30 apparently registered nearly a dozen domain names through MarkMonitor, hinting at the possible service. These include AdvertisingonWindows8.com, Windows8Ads.com and AdsonWindows8.net, among others:

Right now the actual owner of the domains is hidden behind Whois privacy provided by MarkMonitor’s DNstination. But rest assured, these registrations are 99 percent certain to be Microsoft as MarkMonitor is a brand protection company for some of the world’s biggest companies including Microsoft itself.

Microsoft. of course, calls Windows 8 its most ambitious software ever. Currently, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone devices hold onto a single-digit market share, even with the new Mango software release around the corner (BGR says around September 15). Contrast that to Apple and Google which together seized up to two-thirds of the market…

That being said, a prudent market watcher shouldn’t write off Microsoft yet. The company is literally betting its future on Windows 8 in the hope that its vast base of developers using Microsoft’s compelling development environment will quickly generate a ton of Windows 8 apps for smartphones and tablets, helping establish the platform. The key to this strategy is Windows 8’s unification. For the first time, a single Windows version will scale from smartphones to tablets to computers, TV sets and servers, thanks to the unified kernel design. Also, Microsoft said Windows 8 will be the first Windows version ever to support both Intel’s x86 and ARM architectures. The latter is the de facto mobile CPU standard. Apple, too, is using ARM’s blueprints for CPU cores in the in-house designed A4 and A5 processors.