This week it is Martin Wilson from Indigo102’s turn to provide his take on a week in mobile. Here are some of the week’s highlights: “Location” is the topic for Ajit Jaokar of Open Gardens, who praises Nokia for going back to grass roots and believes Nokia is setting the agenda as an industry leader once again. Praise continues for Nokia as Dennis Bournique, at Wap Review, gives his views on the N900 and describes how he believes it represents the next generation of mobile browsing.
Our own Caroline Lewko interviewed industry veteran Francisco Kattan, from Alcatel Lucent, about the changing shape of mobile development. Kattan gives his views and demonstrates how Alcatel Lucent is firmly focused on supporting developers. This support is evident by their sponsorship of the WIPJam taking place February 18th at MWC App Planet.
Archive for the 'Interview' Category
On the 14th of January, just a few days after CES, I interviewed Patrick Mork VP of Marketing at GetJar, talking about the appstore boom at CES, the notion of openness in the appstore world, and the latest developer portal Getjar are launching. So here’s a quick summary in words… but also the overall interview is available as a podcast, this is the first time we’re experimenting with audio so let us know what you think of it!
Download the whole podcast: 
WIP: CES has seen the launch of numerous appstores (as a reminder the AT&T AppCenter, Samsung Apps TV, Intel AppUp, YourAppshop) do you think the future of appstores lies in an increasing number of them in 2010?
Patrick: The future of appstores is a bit like throwing a rock in the air, it will likely come and crash down! There’s a rush towards appstores at the moment following the Apple success and the failure of operators in the content space. Runn
ing an appstore is difficult and I predict a majority of them will die in the coming 12 months. Major difficulties in running an appstore lie in the ability to source good content and the ability to control the quality of the content.
Getjar CEO Ilja Laurs predicted that the future of appstore
would be in openness(slide 14). Is this something you’re acting on already?
Openness is about offering consumers the best possible experience. It should be about offering the application that was developed by the person with the best capability to write the content, not necessarily the company who own and control the appstores. An open ecosystem is about having no barriers in terms of what content gets uploaded on Getjar and not forbidding a browser to be uploaded because there’s already a browser there 
. Having said that Getjar is very mindful of protecting brands and developers as well as ensuring decency and integrity of content for end users but we do not want to play the role of king makers amongst developers we want to give end-users the choice.
A few other things we do is we do not enforce signing, we do not limit the number of updates, fast and guarant
eed submission time (48 hours)
Getjar recommendations are based on user recommendations and advertising, where does openness fit into this?
Openness can be seen in the fact that recommendations by end-users are the main drivers rather than a skewed recommendation based on a limited number of applications present in your store .
Obviously the recommendation algorithm, (based on reviews, downloads and rating) is not public, there are limit to openness. The second operating principle is advertising which is critical to give developers the chance to promote their apps, in this sense we’re unique not only because we allow promotion but also because the promotion is performance based on a pay per download basis.
So apps are free on GetJar today and on top of that I need to pay for advertising… so how I do I make money?
There’s a misconception in the market today that free means no money, there are quite a few examples there, Opera Mini (paid paid by Google for the search traffic they drive), Flirtomatic (virtual gifts) or games publishers putting free applications on GetJar and selling premium versions of their applications.
The paid for apps model we see as not being the most successful one. The statistics by Flurry published a few month back shows that the average iPhone apps made $7500 on the appstore, it’s just not enough to make a living.
We shouldn’t forget that monetizing content on mobile is an industry challenge not just a challenge for GetJar. If you compare this with the Facebook economy there hasn’t been a single example in mobile of a developer growing to a multimillion dollar business and making an exit, when Playfish did.
Having said that Getjar will introduce paid for apps in the second half of the year in US and UK (interesting news!!)
Analytics and sharing of information seems to be key to allow developers to make the right development, pricing and distribution choices. How do you position yourself on Analytics?
The new GetJar developer portal (I loved it!)
Analytics are a feature that Getjar provides increasingly more to developers through our new developer portal. Getjar now allows developer to see not only how many downloads you have per country, per device, per operating system but also to compare it with an average of all the applications on Getjar! Getjar also makes available trending on a per device basis and per operating system basis to allow developers to port their apps to new platforms. More importantly we provide opportunity mapping telling you the opportunity you could generate if you were present on certain handsets!You can also see top 20 apps per download per preceding day and week per country!
We believe this is pretty unique and we’d be glad to get feedback during the WIPJam session at MWC.
We will start organizing a weekly series of webinar Getjar to help developers access and use this functionality, and sharing our knowledge around using Getjar to promote your app.
What about malware? (this was recorded just after malware was reported on Android)
Smartphones are more associated with malware and with their current rise the the rise of malware is almost unavoidable.
Appstores are all about balance, ensuring fast approval AND quality insurance.. and this is a difficult balance to reach. At Getjar we guarantee that your app will be on Getjar 48 hours after submission (or at least to get a response) AND we try to maintain quality standards from this perspective we’re pretty unique among Android Market being fast (24 hours) and low quality on one side and Apple Appstore being slow (up to 7 months) and high quality on the other side.
Top countries for January 2010 downloads on Getjar
| Country | Current Period | Previous Period | Trend | |||
| Indonesia | 14,454,167 | 13,736,562 |  5% |
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| India | 8,661,600 | 7,774,230 | 11% |
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| United States | 4,817,565 | 3,815,531 | 26% |
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| United Kingdom | 1,356,746 | 1,400,482 |  3% |
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| Egypt | 1,280,035 | 1,216,057 | 5% |
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| South Africa | 1,263,530 | 1,240,341 | 2% |
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| Viet Nam | 742,146 | 824,177 | 10% |
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| Bangladesh | 707,025 | 687,147 | 3% |
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| Pakistan | 691,005 | 632,533 | 9% |
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| Turkey | 659,932 | 455,913 | 45% |
GetJar has traditionally been associated with Java devices is the rise of smartphones a bad thing for you?
GetJar stands for APPSOLUTELY EVERYTHING so we’re targeting all handsets wether Java platforms or smartphones. Developers however shouldn’t forget that Java devices continue to be the majority of phones in the market and the only way for developers to be financially successful is to be cross-platform.
The positive news for developers with the increasing awareness of mobile apps is that it has had a hugely positive impact on the sales of apps on feature phones. As an example we now do about 50 M downloads a month compared to 14 M a year ago, with 50% of business still on Java phones. The US in particular has grown from nowhere on our top list to being number 3 in our download figures, developing markets like India and Indonesia have also grown 2 to 3 times faster than the US market. 25% of our North American consumers download content once a day, and globally the figure goes up to 36%.
Apps Apps Apps so what about the Mobile web, how does it play in your strategy?
Among Getjar users mobile usage we predicted the rise of the mobile web. In a survey done a year ago we saw that 65% of users were using their mobile more than their PC to access the web. We do encourage mobile web development as we recognize it as a way to overcome platform fragmentation That’s why we introduced mobile site shortcuts a year back, an icon that’s been downloaded onto the end-user phone and appears as an app even though it’s only a link back to a website. It allows developers to cut on developement costs. Mobile site shortcuts are now 10% of our traffic. Facebook for example using this has 31M downloads on GetJar twice the amount of they’ve have done on iTunes!
PS: Obviously you’ll notice my somewhat hesitant pace… for my excuse I wasn’t drunk but just interviewing someone at 1AM my time after a flight ordeal…
As a preparation for our discussion group for WIPJam at Mobile World Congress on Getting Cool content from the Cloud, and to follow up on the various discussions on the mobile web we have invited Malik Saadi from Informa to share some of his views and thoughts based on his report Mobile Web Application Developement. In this article Malik explains how the emergence of a fragmented smartphonosphere will make native development incredibly more difficult to scale and thus less and less economically viable and why mobile web development might be the savior for developers and brands alike looking to target larger audiences.
Malik Saadi Principal Analyst Informa
Mobile cloud computing will shift applications development to the Web
Despite the proliferation of smartphones and efforts of promoting native development and runtime platforms, Web-based services are emerging as cost-effective challengers that could take application runtime to the Web environment. Not only will this allow the development of cheaper and advanced applications, but it could also shift computing resources and their management from the device to the cloud, which could in turn lower the barriers for enabling advanced applications over non-smartphone terminals.
Smartphones are limiting the appetite for applications development
In recent years, the mobile industry has moved from proprietary to open, allowing for continued improvements in device hardware and more innovation at the application level through the creation of developer communities and application distribution mechanisms. This trend has attracted the majority of device vendors and operating system (OS) developers as well as the mobile operators, which are now eager to offer their own branded app store and subsequently an immersive user experience and advanced mobile applications to their customers. As a result, there has been a strong increase in smartphone OS handset shipments, estimated by Informa Telecoms & Media at 216.3 million units in 2009, up 34% on the previous year. By 2014, sales of smartphones will reach 572.5 million units, representing 40% of total handset sales.
This trend is actually encouraging developers to create applications that are targeted at different OSs and native runtime environments. There are many advantages in developing mobile applications natively, including better integration with the device functionality, high-performance, always-available capabilities, and access to greater support from device vendors through the availability of advanced tools and developer programs.
However, there are also many challenges facing native application developers, which include: code complexity, which could affect the cost of the application development and time to market; application portability across a wide range of devices to achieve economies of scale; and restricted application distribution to operators and OEMs’ channels. Moreover, in the case of Apple, application approval has been a contested topic that has alienated several high-profile app developers from Apple’s App Store.
The fragmentation of OSs, user interfaces (UIs) and runtimes and associated developer programs are also likely to hamper any advantage gained from open mobile applications development. Open OS platforms are often differentiated by their level of support to multimedia and graphical capabilities, network connectivity options, input methods and hardware performance. Chipset manufacturers will find it increasingly difficult to maintain a high-performance and enhanced user experience over different platforms and their associated versions because each platform requires a deep integration with the device hardware and a number of optimization cycles are needed to ensure overall system stability and improved performance. Porting an application to several OS platforms is can be a good reason for failure among independent software vendors (ISVs), but is necessary to achieve economies of scale and reach a wide audience.
Palm Ares, mobile web made easy, Yes! universal?
In addition, development tools associated with different OSs often lack the cross-platform approach that could enable the developer to write the application once and distribute it across various devices powered by different OSs. Mobile native application developers are stymied by the extreme difficulty of writing mobile apps for multiple OSs, UIs and runtime environments, especially when there is no clear winner and diversity is just increasing with the mushrooming number of app stores. Then there is the challenge of finding the right placement for this content so that it can be discovered easily by the end user.
Native applications developers also need to bear the cost of testing, certification and distribution of their applications. The majority of OEMs, operators and mobile app store (MAS) owners are imposing their own test and certification programs on developers. Testing fees are based on the complexity of the application submitted and are between US$250 and US$4,000 per submission. If the application is meant to run over variety of devices and terminal platforms, the third-party developer pays the full test fee for one device and gets a rebate for testing the same application on a second device. Additional fees might also be required for network-based applications. In addition, different OEMs and operators have different criteria for application testing in their certification programs. Native applications developers need to comply with these additional programs if they want their applications to reach different MASs and operator portals, which translates into additional cost burdens.
Also, an obvious difference between desktop and mobile native applications is mobile connectivity. Compelling applications should make maximum use of the customer’s mobility, from mobile location services through to interactive games. Simply replicating the desktop experience will not be enough to sustain long-term growth; users will not pay for mobile versions of applications that are available either free or nearly-free on their desktop computers.
For these reasons, generating native applications that address the long tail of consumer requirements and different consumer groups using various OSs and UIs could be cumbersome, costly and time consuming.
The shift to Web runtime and cloud-based services
The mobile Web applications development environment is an emerging alternative to native applications. This shift is best illustrated by the rush of operators and handset vendors to provide their own widget ecosystems which use Web technologies to facilitate mobile applications development and lower the overall development cost. It could also enable mobile operators and vendors to tap into the wealth of the Internet and address their customers with contextual applications that are more relevant to them.
Until recently, a number of barriers prevented Web-based applications and cloud services from gaining ground in the mobile market, including: the cost of connecting to Web services; the low-bandwidth and latency provided by current mobile access technologies; the bad quality and performance of mobile browsers and related Web technologies; and security issues.
Despite their current shortcomings in terms of performance, power consumption, integration and always-on capabilities compared with native applications, Web applications have many advantages including: faster development, time-to-market and monetization; wider distribution channels; and adaptability for cross-platformization.
There are many changes in the mobile market that are likely to shift applications development to the Web including:
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The accelerating migration towards mobile broadband services.
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The dramatic improvement in mobile browser solutions and UIs.
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The advances of Internet transcoding and multimedia transformation.
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The emergence of widgets and widget runtimes as efficient solutions for easy content discovery.
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Deep integration of Web services with the device capabilities and features to enable the creation of contextual applications.
In the past year, several trends have crystallized around mobile Web runtime technology which promise to transform mobile Web applications development, distribution, installation, execution and management. A number of new OSs, including Google’s Android and Palm’s webOS, and a number of mobile platforms, including Microsoft’s Silverlight, Nokia Web Runtime, Qualcomm’s Plaza Mobile Internet, Adobe’s AIR, Access Netfront Widget platform and Opera Widgets, are designed with Web connectivity and functionality in mind. The whole idea is to enable the easy transition of applications development from a native environment to the Web environment.
A number of operators, including Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, O2, Verizon, AT&T, KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, Softbank and China Mobile, have already developed – or are in the process of developing – widget stores and Web developer programs that will make the development and distribution of Web applications easier and content discovery and management simpler on the mobile screen. For example, the aim of the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) initiative – founded by Vodafone, China Mobile, Softbank and Verizon – is to stimulate a new generation of mobile Internet applications around which they can build their service plans and value-added services. JIL’s first project is to develop a widget ecosystem with a single point of access to enable developers to tap into the combined customer base of the four JIL operators – estimated at 1.1 billion subscribers.
The trend towards the adoption of the Web as a mobile applications development environment is likely to intensify thanks to both the emergence of mobile cloud computing and the low latency of the next-generation access networks, which include LTE, HSPA+ and WiMAX.
Informa expects the Web to become the new ubiquitous platform for application development as more and more applications move to the cloud and allow users to access their personal information anytime from any device and over any access network. This trend is likely to remove “smartness” from the device to the cloud, which could potentially reduce the burdens of fragmentation that the native development environment suffers from and spur innovation through the involvement of the much wider Web developer community in creating contextual mobile applications. In addition, this trend will help to shift processing and storage resources to the cloud, which means advanced applications could be accessed by more resource-constrained devices. This could in turn widen the addressable market for the cloud applications beyond the smartphone market.
By increasing the reliance of end users on the Web and cloud applications, new business models will emerge and revenues will be diversified from multiple sources that include advertising, network API charges to third-party service providers and the creation of premium services for the enterprise market. In addition, the migration to a Web development environment could increase traffic around hosted services such as e-mail, VoIP, online office, calendar, online gaming and social networking.
Several device vendors have been pre-installing key widgets in their devices but the trend now is to reorient their software platform strategies towards the creation of widget ecosystems for the development, distribution, lifecycle management, discoverability and monetization of widgets and Web applications in general. These applications are generally easy to create, fast to distribute and serve a plethora of niche markets on the Internet.
Tier-1 operators are also realizing the potential of partnering with Web application developers to enable innovation over their networks, reduce costs related to building data services and build service plans around long tail of consumer applications that target different user groups.
The aim of major operators is to move away from pipe services based on flat rates towards the creation of content-based service plans that will enable them to address different consumer groups with relevant real-time contextual applications and services.
Operators that are not experts in mobile data services, notably Mobile 2.0, have now openly admitted that they will not be able to create these services on their own and expect to employ third parties in the value chain to create best-of-breed services with sustainable business models.
In this context, vendors of mobile widget solutions could facilitate the work of operators by enabling them to bridge the gap between the Web and mobile applications development. These vendors already propose a suite of applications that could include a widget player, idle screen replacement, ODP and a white-label application store. These products could be deployed either individually or as part of an end-to-end widget development, distribution, presentation and monetization ecosystem.
Informa’s report Mobile Web Applications Development looks at various solutions for developing Web applications and widgets, their respective deployment scenarios and the different features that could be requested by operators or OEMs that wish to add mobile Internet and branded services through widgets. Obviously, operators and OEMs have different requirements when choosing a mobile widget solution depending on which market segments and regions they want to address and which services they aim to deploy. The report also looks at the role of mobile widgets in providing a rich mobile Internet experience to help operators and OEMs create new service opportunities, increase customer loyalty and extend the value of their brand to new market segments. It includes a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the revenue opportunities and key trends in widget ecosystems, enabling technologies and the challenges facing operators and OEMs in implementing them.
To accompany the launch of the WIPwiki appstore WIP’s been going around interviewing mobile Appstore providers of the kind you generally do not hear about. In this first interview we talked to Victor Shaburov, CEO of Handster. Handster provide a mobile appstore but more importantly specialize in white label appstores for OEM and Operators.
WIP: We love the name of your company does it stand for “Napster of the handheld device world”?
VS : Yes, the name originally had some hints to this, because we were doing SDK with direct payment and peer-to-peer sharing (with possibility to make a few dollars on sharing apps). Sharing was later dropped, but the name remained.
[Neat idea to get users to swap app directly with built-in billing and an affiliate scheme, this one score high in the ideal appstore (see on the left hand corner) discussion]
Handster launched pretty recently in a world where appstores are getting more numerous by the day. Why did you decide to start a new appstore then? What makes you different?
Project was actually started in 2004, so it is not that recent.
Right now we are focusing on providing more qualitative content:
- we are adding screenshots to app descriptions.
- we support 10 languages and translated lot of program descriptions
- we started making video reviews of applications with professional voice artists. Video reviews explain the software and make it easier for customers to make purchase decision.
- we are working on worldwide SMS payment integration, to make purchase simple for everyone.
And we have highly flexible white label AppStore platform for carriers, handset manufacturers and other distributors.
Video review of MiniTranscanada as found on Handster (don’t ask why we chose this one
)
Unfortunately, though we have seen a lot of appstore launched lately, none of them seems to be getting the level of success that Apple and iPhone developers have. Do you think we’ll see such a success coming to other platforms?
Android already shows a similar success. Apple AppStore generates up to 9USD per user/month, Andoid around 8 USD as recent reviews show – so that is close.
We believe that other platforms will catch up with them after some time.
As you support multiple platforms on Handster, do you have any insights in terms of where should developers concentrate their efforts?
We are neutral and welcome success of any platform.
You say you work with HP and LG to give them content for their stores, how does it work? If more people get on the way doesn’t it mean less money for developers?
Apple has a special situation, where they own hardware, OS and are able to push their conditions to mobile operators.
But in general, you should make everyone happy – and mobile operators and handset manufacturers should participate in the success of AppStores.
We see potential for us in this area and offer white label AppStore platform for mobile operators and handset manufacturers.
That, of course, makes a developer’s share smaller, but what matters in the end is the paycheck that they receive.
We offer software developers stronger discoverability and promotion of their applications on AppStores of our partners – this is an additional revenue channel for them.
What’s your view on application testing and certification? How long is Handster certification process?
We test applications of new software developers, and once we are sure about their quality, we basically allow to publish updates and new apps live anytime.
Depending on a partner (carrier, handset manufacturer), we sometimes do re-testing for a particular handset and offer only compatible software.
Where do you think appstores in general have to improve?
More payment options, better discoverability of applications, quality content.
And finally, what is going to be your challenge in the coming months?
We are actively looking for more partners among mobile operators and handset manufacturers from one side, to offer them a white label AppStore platform and aggregated content.
And we are looking for more software developers, to distribute their apps through our channels. Developers can register with Handster using this link: http://www.handster.com/developers.php
Thank you Victor!
