Yup, today another big name App is gone from the Windows Phone Store. VeVo joins the likes of Bank of America from removing their App from the Store. Windows Central broke the news a few moment ago.

The burning question then on the minds of most Windows Phone users is: Why are these big name Apps disappearing from the Store? Why remove them? They can at least let the last updated version remain in the Store, even if they don’t plan to update it anymore.

Yes, those would have been logical questions to ask, the answer is ever simpler than the questions. They are removed because of Economic reasons. Yes, money trumps customers satisfaction for these entities that relied on and grew big on the backs of these very customers.

Maintenance cost of Apps is not small these days. Big Companies mostly don’t develop their apps in-house, they contract the Build, Deployment and Maintenance to third-party vendors. Now the crux of the matter is these big-name companies have their dynamic environments in iOS and Android platforms for which they’re heavily invested.

The Apps of these companies are being constantly updated on those platforms to the detriment of the Windows Platform. Then at a point in time, the difference between the iOS, Android platform and the Windows platform is so large that they become irreconcilable. Especially if the back-end infrastructure for the iOS and Android version have been change to such an extent that the company either have to also update the Windows version (which cost money) or pull it from the Store. As we can see, these companies choose to pull from the Windows Store.

I am sure the CIOs of these companies have made calculations and decided they can miss the customers on the Windows platform. But still, it is painful for the end users, and shows lack of respect for your customers no matter how small the number.