Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Technology Drivers Cell Phone Apps

Previously dominated handset manufacturers and network operators, the mobile market. With the advent of smartphones grew a new power: the software developers. Apps that are the secret behind the rise of Google and Apple - and the decline of Nokia. Barcelona - It's a crazy idea that the mighty cell phone world market leader Nokia of aggressive cartoon birds, simple pastime games and fart programs was brought to its knees - and yet this is true in some way.


Nokia phones built remains solid, missed it but to inspire software developers for its Symbian platform. Without popular Apps stayed away to users. Now Nokia seeks salvation in an alliance with Microsoft - yet another loser in the new mobile world. In discussions on Nokia's turnaround, it is at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona therefore usually only a problem: it works both win enough developers for the new hope Windows Mobile 7 or not? The buzzword is "ecosystem" - earning the combination of a strong platform and developers money.

Apps ensure gold rush atmosphere, and some are actually a gold mine. Who in the German capital Berlin start-up some experience in programming apps should look for no steady job, "says a company founder. The rates are subject to free software developers at 600 to 1,200 euros - per day! There prevails a real "war for talent".

In four years from zero to ten billion This new world was dizzyingly fast. The two emerging mobile platforms - Google's Android and Apple's IOS - four years ago were not even on the market. Even more: Apple launched its App Store until the summer of 2008 and recently cracked the mark of ten billion Apps.

Breathtaking? This is nothing compared to what is: 17 billion downloads this year alone, a $ 15,900,000,000 activity which estimate the market researchers at Gartner. By the end of 2014, should already have landed a total of 185 billion apps on mobile devices. Another forecast of 25 billion dollars in sales in 2015 appear as even reluctant.

How did it come to this boom? And - more importantly - where does that lead? The first question is easily answered: The idea of making the phones to a more or less open playing field for developers. answer to the second, many experts honest: "We do not know." One thing is clear: The business has changed forever.

It is also clear: There is no paradise. From a "brutal competition" speaks in Barcelona itself, the developer of one of the most popular smartphone games "Angry Birds'. The Finnish company Rovio landed 50 flops before the "bad bird" stood out. do not give a "secret recipe" for success, it says Rovio Mikael Hed.

Free is good, premium must be cheap and even if you made it on the phones of the users, you're not far from rich. "The standard price is: free," ticked off Hed. "The premium price: 0.79 €." Those who require more, risked drowning in the crowd of hundreds of thousands of other programs. Four out of five apps were downloaded for free, know the market researcher.

Their developers then attempt to earn through advertising or sales within the Apps money. The latter works especially well in games, and explains the insane at first glance assessment of up to nine billion dollars for the virtual farms and cornfields of the "Farmville" developer Zynga. The mobile operator, which has cost the App Boom massive influence attempt strengthened to jump on the train.

They want to profit from the current weaknesses of the model such as fragmentation and complexity. Sun Telefónica O2 launched in Barcelona, the developer platform BlueVia about the "world's more than 264 million customers" could be achieved. Vodafone manager Lee Epting said that they wanted to offer customers a service that element is used with many apps for it.

No comments:

Post a Comment