Mobile Application Stores are the desired one-stop shops for the mobile applications where one could browse, select, buy and sell mobile applications on the web. They have been existing for many years now in different forms but the concept has got a lot of traction in the last one year.
The application stores have been as old as 2001 when Qualcomm came up with the complete developer-to-consumer channel for discovering, provisioning, distributing and billing applications on BREW handsets. Since then we have seen a plethora of mStores including Handango, Nokia Download!, Apple Appstore, Google Android Market, Microsoft, RIM application center and Samsung application store (beta) and couple of others.
One of the concerns that these raise is that the already fragmented mobile industry may become more fragmented. The need of the hour is to get the applications working across platforms, devices and operating systems.
The latest update on the same is the launch of the 'Ovi Store' from Nokia, which will consolidate its existing Download!, Mosh and WidSets efforts on the applications. It will also provide customized and contextually relevant user experience determined by factors like personal contacts and physical location.
There is a growing interest for the application stores because they provide a new revenue stream for the operators, handset OEMs and application developers apart from providing a single place for the user to look for the applications catering to the platform.
The success of the application stores can be gauged by the fact that Apple Appstore resulted in more than 5,000 new applications, $30 million revenues in the first 30 days of operations and 200 million downloads in the first 100 days.
Handango is one of the first application retailers and is the largest cross-platform smartphone application distributor with over 150,000 applications (including variants) in its online stores and over 100 million applications.
The five key ingredients of Mobile Application Store solutions include single marketplace, centralised billing, global distribution, provisioning, on-device discovery and revenue distribution model.
It was mentioned earlier that the key stakeholders in the mobile application stores are the operators, handset OEMs and the application developers. However, the most successful application stores will come from the handset OEMs because they can manage the distribution, provisioning and on-device discovery elements, while partnering with billing and retailing vendors to complete the picture. The other stakeholders probably have lesser control of all the ingredients of success. The few players such as Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Qualcomm, Nokia, Intel and RIM also have higher chances of success because of their might, reach and vertical integration. source:Indiatimes Infotech
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