Microsoft pays $100,000 bounty to entice Windows Phone developers from Android, Apple and BlackBerry

Desperate ploy to get key apps from Android and Apple into the Windows Phone app store

Microsoft is paying developers up to $100,000 in a desperate bid to bump up the number of Windows Phone 8 applications.

While the company claims some 145,000 apps in the Windows Phone app store, it nevertheless lacks key apps, such as a Windows Phone version of Pinterest and Instagram.

According to IDC, Windows Phone just overtook BlackBerry in the first quarter, selling seven million devices to BlackBerry's 6.7 million. Apps for BlackBerry's new 10-series devices have been bolstered, though, by an ability to easily port apps built for Android, up to version 2.3, to the BlackBerry platform.

In contrast, more than 162 million Android devices were sold in the same period. In the second quarter, though, BlackBerry may well take back its position as it is expected to have shifted many more of its flagship z10 and q10 smartphones.

News of the bounty for app developers to port their wares to Windows Phone was revealed in Business Week magazine, a claim verified by other sources.

The big-money offer to makers of big-selling apps - which typically charge just a couple of pounds for downloading them, if they are not free - stands in contrast to a Microsoft offer to pay $100 for any app published in its store by the end of June.