The latest buzz in mobile development is with the iPhone, and Apple has been keen on publishing overnight success stories of developers who rake in hundreds of thousands on a small, moderately priced iPhone game or application. All isn’t roses and glory in the iPhone App Store and Microsoft is in a perfect position to capitalize on Apple’s latest PR follies with SlingPlayer, woo developers, and launch a viable, effective, and equally compelling app store under the Windows Marketplace moniker.

SlingPlayer is a mobile application that works together with SlingBox to effortlessly and wirelessly stream your TV/cable/satellite programming from your home to your laptop or mobile device. Currently, SlingPlayer works with Windows Mobile, Palm OS, BlackBerry, and S60 devices. Sling has even announced that its app has been submitted, sending emails to interested users to upgrade their hardware to the latest versions of the SlinBox available because only current generation hardware will be able to support “slinging” to the iPhone; users of other platforms, for now, can use older generation hardware.

The Redmond-based software giant has been wooing developers and trying to get some momentum built up for its Windows Marketplace, a shopping destination on a Windows Phone and for the Windows Phone. Recently, it has announced some promising start-ups with some interesting ideas for applications. It has announced some partners too, some big ones like Electronic Arts, Facebook, MySpace and many others. However, Apple’s latest PR blunder rests in Apple management’s decision to reject SlingPlayer from the App Store for the iPhone.

AppleInsider has reported that there are rumors that Apple management has canned Sling’s latest attempts at an iPhone SlingPlayer application at AT&T’s request since the carrier thought the app may use too much bandwidth if users would be “slinging” over the 3G mobile network. The company has invested a lot of resources into developing the iPhone application to Apple’s developer’s specifications. Because of Apple’s tight control over which apps can make it to the App Store, Sling’s only recourse would be to offer the app through unofficial means through jailbroken iPhones; phones cracked to circumvent Apple’s app DRM to run non-sanctioned applications.

Microsoft could definitely use its position as the non-exclusive application distributer through Windows Marketplace to entice developers. Marketplace offers many benefits of the iTunes App Store for the iPhone allowing users to discover smaller developers, browse and sample applications from their mobile devices, make easy payments for application purchases, and archive and retrieve previously purchased applications. Unlike the iPhone App Store, Marketplace isn’t the only distribution channel for Windows Phone applications, meaning applications not approved for Marketplace can still make it to Windows Phone officially through other means, including the developer’s own website or third party app stores.

By offering a non-exclusive application stores, developers would not need to worry about loss revenues and sunk development costs should an application not get approved. Sling, unfortunately, if its iPhone application gets rejected, would have to eat the development costs for the iPhone SlingPlayer and could not earn any money due to loss of sales because the app was not approved. If a Windows Marketplace-submitted app was not approved, developers can seek to distribute it to Windows Phone through other means. Thus, its efforts aren’t wasted. This message should be communicated to potential developers for Windows Phone.