For those of us that eat and sleep mobile (that’s our job, right?), it’s been interesting to follow how the big industry players are rushing to create online mobile application “stores”. Riding on the coattails of the successful iPhone App Store, Microsoft, Google, RIM and others are all jumping into the ring to compete head-to-head with Apple.
These industry behemoths are launching their online stores so end users/customers can find, buy and download applications and other content for their mobile devices. Plus, it provides a marketing outlet for the growing developer community to showcase and sell their wares. That’s great news for our industry as it shows strong interest and continued growth in mobility. Loosening carrier restrictions and opening platforms means just about anyone can develop, upload and sell a mobile solution to this growing market. Of course, if you’ve been paying attention you know that you’re not likely to find many strategic business applications on these sites.
It’s one thing to hack out some code utilizing the iPhone’s accelerometer to mimic a pint of beer and upload it to the App Store, but developing and successfully marketing a strategic business application (one that provides clear value and a quick return on investment) requires a different kind of business model. For many small and medium sized developers a great product is enough to build a list of local clients. But extending their product’s reach to the regional or national stage can be overwhelming due to prohibitive marketing and advertising costs, product support and training issues, sales channel complexities, mounting fees, distribution issues and more. Unfortunately, these big online stores don’t help with those issues because they simply aren’t designed to offer any more than just the application.
Since many business application developers struggle to effectively market their apps, potential customers have difficulty finding their products. The major search engines are too broad to be effective and most online sites are consumer-focused or too narrow. So where does Joe the Electrician (just couldn’t bring myself to say ‘plumber’!) go to find a bundled solution for inventory management, vehicle tracking and m-commerce for his business? Well, it’s not the iTunes App Store. Microsoft’s upcoming “Skymarket” store has potential, but only if the software is written for Windows Mobile (it was going to be for version but maybe now for version 6.5 – which isn’t even out yet??). What about RIM’s new BlackBerry store (once it opens, of course)? Possibly, but Joe may need something more rugged than a shiny new BlackBerry Storm.
It’s obvious that this book is still being written – in fact, I think we’re only looking at chapter 1. And of course, as the next chapters come together, you’ll read about it here.
It amazes me to see so many poorly designed apps. OK, so maybe “poorly designed” isn’t the right phrase. How about saying, ”It amazes me to see so many full featured and cool apps that don’t take into consideration the unique strengths, and inherent limitations, of the mobile platform.” Better? No? Let me be clear - for any budding app developers or product managers out there, let me offer up some advice:
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