Giant Microsoft doesn't often find itself having to play the feisty upstart. But that's the situation when it comes to its mobile application storefront.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is the big kahuna when it comes to online storefronts, having leveraged its iTunes music store expertise to develop the world's most successful mobile storefront, the iPhone App Store. The App Store now boasts over 65,000 applications and over 1.5 billion downloads since its debut a bit more than a year ago.

But Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is hardly new to wooing developers. Exhibit A is its years of experience attracting millions of developers to the Windows platform, and to a much lesser degree, to its Windows mobile platform.

Now, in advance of the launch of Marketplace, its mobile app store, Microsoft has announced a series of free WinMoDevCamps starting on Aug. 19 at its Redmond, Wash. campus.

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