Microsoft is pretty late to the game with Windows Mobile Marketplace but good news seems just around the corner. Today is the 2009 Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans and many (like TechCrunch) are expecting the company to open up the mobile applications development program to developers around the world. It should open on July 27th which is certainly exciting news for developers… but how about consumers?

Consumers will be happy too because Microsoft isn’t only planning to launch their Application Marketplace for the new and upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 but it will also be available on existing WinMo 6.1 and even WinMo 6.0 handsets. Mobile Apps for all! And this is where we come full circle with the question – Will Developers dive in? If not, consumers will have little to look forward to.

There is some bad news, too. It seems Microsoft will make little or no effort to lure developers to the platform, instead relying on the quantity of WinMo users out there as the convincing argument. It is a little more convincing now that 6.0 and 6.1 will also be included in the distribution, but this thing won’t go live until at least December 2009 which is disappointing at best considering how far behind Microsoft is lagging.

So there is good news and bad news: which one outweighs the other?