Updates to Windows App Management in Intune with Winget

Hi again Dennis0701. What you're commenting on is the nature of all stores, even brick and mortar stores. We can't magically solve that. Demand and usage is often a self-feeding upward or downward spiral. Given that no one is forcing you to use our new Intune integration with the Microsoft Store though, I'm not really sure what point it is you are trying to make. You can freely choose not to use it if you so choose. We clearly want folks to use it, but this is of course contingent on vendors publishing their apps to the Microsoft Store which we feel is a win-win for all involved and that is their and your incentive -- to start the upward spiral of usage and demand.

As for non-official apps, once again, do not conflate the community repository with the Microsoft Store. As I called out, the Microsoft Store definitely has a publisher verification check to validate the publisher of software. Whether that publisher chooses to publish their latest version or not though is on them. The new integration in Intune with the Microsoft Store does *not* include the ability to deploy apps from the community repository (this is something we've discussed in depth and are continuing to investigate, but at this time have not implemented and have no definite plans to do so either). Having said that though, even if we did implement it, is it any different from you or any other IT admins downloading an app randomly from any other source and deploying to your endpoints without verification and validation? Do you really need to be told to be aware of third-party software and do your own due diligence for validation and testing? 

Tor the Store being usable, as noted before, we have many customers successfully deploying and using apps from the Microsoft Store. This includes using the soon to be retired Microsoft Store for Business and its integration with Intune as well as new integration we just released. These integrations in no way change the nature of the Microsoft Store or the apps published to it -- this has been pretty much constant since the release of Windows 8 10 years ago. The integrations simply facilitate this thus I'm still unsure as to what the issue it is that you are attempting to call attention to as none of this is new in any way. The cost or Intune is not in any way linked to or related to the Microsoft Store or its usage and we in no way purport this either.

Do I wish that more (all even) vendors would publish their apps to the Microsoft Store? Yes, of course, It would remove a huge burden and obstacle from the list of tasks a Windows admin is reponsible for. The store itself is just a tool though, we cannot force vendors to use the Microsoft Store alone though (or will not really as the Windows app ecosystem is quite vast and a beast of its own really with many caveats and nuances). We also will not pay vendors to publish their apps to the Store. That just wouldn't be a good business decision for us (or our customers IMO).

So, if you are calling out the lack of apps published to the Microsoft Store for enterprise and commerical customers, then sure, I'm right there with you and this is something we've defintiely discussed as well. This is not due to a technical limitation in the toolset though. As noted, we (all customers and vendors really) need to start an upward spiral of publishing apps to the Microsoft Store so that they are easily "findable" and easily "deployable" (as noted, win-win for all whether you use Intune or not). Thus, once again, you (you meaning all customers), need to enage with and ask the third-party app vendors and "pressure" them to adopt the tools that make your life easier and better -- this is something we do not control and as noted previously, you (the customers) are much better positioned to to achieve.