Developers who have already become comfortable with the app marketplace Apple’s established for the iPhone may not have a lot of adjusting to do when Windows Phone 7 Series devices start popping up.  Microsoft’s revealed that it will establish a similar exclusive marketplace for its apps.

Nilay Patel managed to talk to a knowledgeable person (Todd Higgs) at Microsoft today, and he wrote afterwards, “[T]he only official way to get apps on a Windows Phone 7 Series device will be to download them from the just-detailed Windows Phone Marketplace.  That means developers will have to abide by Microsoft’s technical and content guidelines in order to make it in, with the very real possibility of rejection — sound familiar?”

The possible bright side: “Todd told us Microsoft plans to avoid Apple-style submission headaches by making the process transparent and predictable, with a group of Microsoft execs regularly meeting to examine edge cases and refine the guidelines as needed, but even the best intentions can be led astray by a sexy app or two.”

Microsoft’s promised to spill the rest of the beans sometime in May (if not before), so just keep your fingers crossed that this works out for the best.  Microsoft might manage to bait Apple into loosening up a little bit.

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