WP7 Marketplace from unsupported country

 

So, you’ve just created an awesome app for Windows Phone and you’re ready to submit it to Marketplace. You’ve fulfill all the Marketplace requirements, all you need to do is to register on AppHub portal to actually submit your super-cool app.
But … oh wait, you live in a “not-supported” country? Microsoft initially said: “Sorry folks, no go.” After a lot of “negative response” from community, Microsoft changed its viewpoint and now they are “working on more and more supported countries, in the meantime try some other options from our partners.”
So first, let’s take a look at how I managed to get an official AppHub account and the end I’ll mention some other options ways to publish your app.

If you read my blog, than you probably know, that I live in a small European country Slovenia. Since we’re too small to be bothered by Microsoft (even thought we have localization for all major Microsoft products, including Windows and Office), we’re not supported on Windows Phone platform.
I started with my DreamSpark account (which is valid for one year after I’ve finished my studies, so I just caught last months of this account :)), since there is no need to pay $100 yearly subscription fee for students . For registration to be completed you need to enter a valid address in one of the supported countries, so just for fun I entered UK and one random address in London (hint: there are a lot of stores in London) and I was registered. All I need was a conformation from GeoTrust, company which checks your information on behalf of Microsoft. OK, so I submitted one test app (student account is not verified until you submit your first app) and waited what will happen. After a day or two, I got an email, stating that I should send them a copy of a valid driving license or Passport. Damn. Battle lost, I guess I’ll have to find another way to submit apps. But after two weeks, when I nearly forgot about that (I was working on some other project, but that’s another story), I got a call from a US phone number. I picked a phone with a surprise “Hello?” and on the other end guy said to me: “Hi, this is Jeff from GeoTrust. I’m calling on behalf of Microsoft for your Marketplace verification.” At first I was “Ehm, what?” but it took me just second to realize, that I need to explain myself. I told him I was just testing out and I don’t live in UK, as I stated in AppHub account, actually I’m from Slovenia. The guy from GeoTrust just said “Ok … let me check something…” and after a few seconds of silence he said to me some very cool words: “So, Slovenia is member of European Union, right? Just send me copy of your ID document and we’ll see what we can do.” The first thing I did, when I got home (I was driving when this call happened) was to send them a copy of my ID. And that’s it, next day I got email stating “Congratulations, Ales Rosina. Welcome to the Windows Phone Marketplace developer program.”

There you have it, it’s my experience with AppHub account verification – I hope some of you may get it the same way. But – there are some drawbacks – with this account I’m able to publish only free apps, since for paid Microsoft wants me to send them UK VAT number (which I obviously don’t have). But publishing free apps is good enough for me, so I didn’t dig any further in this direction.

If this doesn't work for you, you have some other options – the most complicated is opening business in one of the supported countries. If that’s not what' you’re looking for (eg. you would like to submit an app or two and maybe get some bucks for them, but it’s just not your primary business) you can check Yalla Yalla apps, which is one of the best option for unsupported countries – at least that’s what community on the web is saying. More on that subject read on ailon’s blog in this two great posts:

- The state of Worldwide WP7 publishing after MIX11 and
- Windows Phone app publishing through Yalla apps

If you have any questions, just leave a comment!

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author: Aleš Rosina | Comments: 2 | Tags: wp7-marketplace