Microsoft unveiled its Windows Phone Dev Center, the successor to its now-retired App Hub portal for developers targeting Windows Phone users.

And according to WMPoweruser, the company is also set to rebrand its Windows Phone Marketplace as Windows Phone Store, more closely reflecting the identity it uses for its stores for other Windows platforms.

In a blog post, Microsoft said Dev Center offers a “cleaner look and streamlined set of menu options and quick links”. It said it will “continue to fine tune and optimise the site and infrastructure in the weeks ahead”.

Dev Center is built on a more robust and scalable backend, which the company has been touting for some time. The launch is also said to bring developers access to more markets, and offer new opportunities to sell apps.

“Developers can soon register in four times as many countries or regions, and get paid in three times as many as possible today”, said Microsoft’s Ash Wahi.

Microsoft is also increasing the number of markets where the Windows Phone Marketplace is available to consumers, “nearly tripling” the total.

Among the new features added by Dev Center is PayPal support, both for developers to be paid, and for them to pay for developer accounts.

It also enables unique prices to be set for apps in specific countries or regions, which was described as “a powerful new tool for fine-tuning your app marketing and profit making strategies”.

Developers can also now view ratings and reviews for each market in a single screen, rather than needing to select specific markets for a summary.

While future support for in-app purchasing has been promised, it has been reported that this will only be available for apps built for Windows Phone 8 – remaining unavailable for apps targeting Windows Phone 7.x devices.

Dev Center will “support this important new revenue-generating mechanism in multiple ways, making it easy to do things like add and manage in-app merchandise and track sales”.

Microsoft has also removed a 100-user limit on beta test apps, to now support “thousands” of testers, in order to enable developers to access feedback from a wider group of users.

The company has improved the account sign-up and submission processes, which it described as “two areas some of you told us could be better”.

Dev Center has also been more closely integrated with Microsoft Advertising’s pubCenter, making it possible to create a pubCenter account and ad units from the same place that apps are managed. Also available are new analytics tools. Developers can track downloads by purchase type – free, paid, trial and beta, with a new My Money report tracking monthly payouts.

Finally, the portal is also more tightly integrated with MSDN, so developers no longer need to leave the portal to view Windows Phone-related forums and SDK info.