Microsoft Is Writing Checks to Fill Out Its App Store

Nowadays, cellphones are all about apps. And Microsoft is so determined to have lots of brand-name apps for its Windows Phone app store that it is willing to pay for them.

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All an app maker has to do is sign on the dotted line.

After years of struggling in the phone market, Microsoft teamed up with Nokia last year to challenge the dominance of Apple’s iPhone and Google [GOOG  632.32    -2.83  (-0.45%)   ], which makes the Android operating system. The latest fruit of their collaboration is a gleaming machine called the Lumia 900, which goes on sale in the United States on Sunday and is considered to be the first true test of how well the partnership will fare.

But the hundreds of thousands of apps that run on Apple [AAPL  633.68    9.37 (+1.5%)   \] and Android devices will not work on phones like the Lumia 900 that use Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. And many developers are reluctant to funnel time and money into an app for what is still a small and unproved market. So Microsoft has come up with incentives, like plying developers with free phones and the promise of prime spots in its app store and in Windows Phone advertising.

It is even going so far as to finance the development of Windows Phone versions of well-known apps — something that app makers estimate would otherwise cost them anywhere from $60,000 to $600,000, depending on the complexity of the app. The tactic underscores the strong positions of Google and Apple, neither of which have to pay developers to make apps.

When Microsoft [MSFT  31.52    0.31  (+0.99%)   ] offered to underwrite a Windows Phone version of Foursquare, the mobile social network, Holger Luedorf, Foursquare’s head of business development, did not hesitate to say yes.

“We have very limited resources, and we have to put them toward the platforms with the biggest bang for our buck,” he said. “But we are a social network and it is incredibly important for us to be available on every platform.”

Foursquare has in-house engineers working on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry versions of its service. But had Microsoft not offered to pay an outside company to do the work, Mr. Luedorf said Foursquare would “probably not” have developed an app for Windows Phone.

Ben Huh, chief executive of the Cheezburger Network, a collection of humor and entertainment sites, said Microsoft’s market share was too small to warrant in-house development of a Windows Phone app. But when Microsoft approached his company about making an application featuring funny photos of cats, he agreed. “They made it very easy for us,” he said. “They took care of everything.”

Casey McGee, senior marketing manager for Windows Phone at Microsoft, confirmed that the company offered an array of incentives for developers, but he declined to name the apps Microsoft had financed.