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Welcome! I am Tom, your host: blogging about entrepreneurship and making great things. [more]
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Should operators support app developers?
There were no app stores not so long ago, and look at how many we have now!
I wish I could have attended this week’s MoMo London event themed “What are Operators Doing to Support Developers and Innovation?” Simon Judge’s report suggests it was noteworthy. Things are definitely evolving for mobile applications; once only for geeks, operators can now push them towards your grandmother smoothly.
The question I am pondering is: is the operator’s store the natural place for apps to converge and descend upon the customers?
YES
It’s a perfect place for the operator’s existing customers – their subsidized handsets can have the app-store placed prominently in the menu, download / install / payment can use the operator’s well-oiled machinery, global reach in some cases, co-promotion, etc. It’s good for developers, too: they get to use some very cool services and APIs.
NO
Operators’ app stores are silos. They are designed to support the operators’ core business – data usage, messaging. Apps that have the potential to disturb said business are unlikely to get very far there (just as Apple is cleansing its store of apps threatening its business).
WHO ELSE?
If the choice is between a platform owner’s app store (Google, Apple, MS) or that of an operator (O2 Litmus, VF Betavine), then the end result shall be similar. What I’d like to see is some sort of P2P infrastructure that would allow app developers to connect directly with mobile customers. Yes there is one – the Web – but we’ll have to wait for phones with rich web experience to reach mainstream for that model to become viable.
PS (Mar 15, 2009): the “walled garden” analogy comes to mind.
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