AdDuplex CEO Alex Mendelevich has announced that the company will end active development of its AppRaisin app for Windows 10 on PC and Mobile. The app will continue to be available and supported in the Windows Store.
AppRaisin was first developed to help promote apps and news in the Windows community. Development began in September 2015 and the first version was released in November of that year. In a rather lengthy blog post, Mendelevich stated:
12 months and 12 feature updates later we had to make a difficult decision to shift active development efforts to other projects. AppRaisin is not going anywhere. We will run and support it for as long as it provides value to the community and doesn't cost us an arm and a leg. However, we decided not to treat it as a potential money-maker for us anymore and rather focus on providing a great resource to Windows enthusiast community at a reasonably minimal cost to us.
Mendelevich stated that AdDuplex had set a goal of having 100,000 monthly active users for AppRaisin by the end of 2016, but at the moment it has less than 25,000 monthly users, with a growth rate of between 1,000 and 2,000 new users a month. He put part of the blame on Microsoft itself. Four out of five AppRaisin users are on Windows 10 Mobile but the OS itself is only installed on a small percent of all Windows 10 devices:
Meaning that in the alternative universe where Microsoft kept its promise to upgrade all Windows Phone 8.1 devices to Windows 10, we could have had close to 150,000 MAU with the same effort.
Mendelevich also claims that Microsoft has policies about not placing apps that promote other apps in the Windows Store "top list", where it would have gotten more promotion. He does say that he is looking for AppRaisin fans to help pledge financial support via an Appstretch campaign. The company says if they can raise $10,000, they will add Russian language and community features to the app.
Download AppRaisin from the Windows Store
