Before the Dev center registeration was open in Oman, I registered through Microsoft Publishing partner called YallaApps (Paying the same 99$/year). That was about a year ago. I published many apps with them and the process in overall was nothing less than agony. Very slow responses, and most of the time wrong responses an I have to repeat what I need many many times.
Anyway, I felt so happy back in August when I knew that the Dev center is opening in the country I live in. YallaApps informed all their subscribers that they need to register for new accounts in the dev center and pay full and then in November Microsoft would refund your subscriptions. They said if you like to keep the rating and reviews (which are many for my apps) you need to file a request on a specific online form. Which I did very early once they announced it. They also said if you don’t need to keep your ratings and reviews, you can send us a request for deleting the apps from our side and you submit them again with your account.
So, after registering and finishing all their requirments, I waited. And waited some more. I wrote to their blog as a comment and the comment is still waiting moderation for about a month now.
I wrote on their facebook page asking about the migration and no reply for about a week.
I wrote to their support email and I received an auto-reply saying that we received your email, and we’ll respond to you within 48 hours. And for over a week now, nothing.
I received an email three days ago from Microsoft Global Publishing Partner Program saying that a refund will be issued for you dev center subscription and they mentioned nothing about the apps migration. I replied to their email asking about an ETA for the mogration of apps and they replied to me saying that the app migration has already been done. We did not receive a request from Yalla to transfer any apps to you account. No further migration is possible now..!!!
I do not know specifically whose mistake is this, but I am very sure it is not mine and I do not want to pay for the mistakes of Microsoft and/or their partners.
So I looked-up YallaApps and their mother company “Prototype Interactive” in Dubai Media City and I called their phone number many times and all I get is voice mail.
Me and all other people stuck with YallaApps would like Microsoft to take action and protect our rights from a bad Microsoft partner. How can you ask for more devs to come in when the ones you already have are jumping out?
* Update 11-Dec-2012: Someone actually answered my 5th or 6th phone call and I re-explained the issue and they said they will look into it and get bak to me TODAY.
* Update 11-Dec-2012: I received an email from YallaApps asking for details and acknowledging that the migration was finished and my apps we not migrated.
* Update 21-Dec-2012: I received and email from Microsoft (replying to my email on Dec. 10th) saying that there will be a second batch of migrations and they do not guarantee that it will be successful nor they can give a time line.