The Great App Store Tug-of-War Commences

Continuing with our discussion on smartphones and the operating system/apps being the key differentiating factor in the handset market, there has been a significant development in this area especially for the standardization of applications and widgets across all smart mobile terminals. Recently, at the concluded GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona  some of the world’s largest MNOs have unified themselves behind the idea of a single platform “Wholesale Applications Community“  where mobile application developers will be able to flock in and develop applications for which will theoretically be the largest app store in the world serving a broad range of mobile subscribers.

This standardization of APIs across the participating MNOs is a key step in leveraging the BONDI an open source industry collaboration for widget and web technologies led by (OMTP) Open Mobile Terminal Platform representing not only the operators but includes the complete mobile value chain i.e. handset manufacturers, chip makers, content providers and OS, software developers. We have seen the growth of internet on mobile terminals from WAP model to finally the real internet browsing using Opera, IE, S60, Opera, Safari browser now available on these smart phones. These applications will primarily be web browser based apps and widgets. So from developers point of view developing applications one time working with only one SDK involving HTML5 and JavaScript standards which will help them avoid specific and costly development for different mobile OS platforms and at the same time exposing them to sell their apps to a broader range of content hungry mobile subscribers.

The currently popular and easily available device based apps provide a more seamless access and a compelling user experience with a deeper integration but at the same time possesses a bigger challenge for the developers in building and customizing it for each different operating system platform and device out there. Whereas the network centric(web browser based) widgets and applications requires minimal customization for different platforms/devices with an ability to rollout quicker and achieve scale. But with web based apps the challenge is at the level of deeper integration, navigation, human computer interaction and the authentication methods. But with a huge support from developer community, industry players and w3 standardization, OMTP is definitely on the road to develop and promote the web based apps and widgets successfully.

The primary advantage of the web based app model is to the entire development community, operators who will earn 30% of the total revenues generated from these apps. It will also be advantageous to the mobile advertising community to spread its reach more effectively with easy integration with the HTML/JavaScript based powerful advertising. From user perspective it will definitely be cheaper compared to the mobile based apps and won’t have the trouble of syncing and preserving the information on apps on the device with an added advantage of secured personal information incase of the phone is lost. The other boost will be in the areas of the most popular smartphone user engagement categories i.e. online gaming, social networking, location based services and multimedia content access.

So with BONDI getting a green signal, we shall now witness an interesting relationship unfolding between the operators and the device manufacturers, where they will be partnering as well as competing at the same time.