Cell systems group gangs up on Apple
A number of cellular system operators have decided to gang up on Apple as a new way to fight the leader in the cell phone app wars, joining forces to go up against Apple and the App Store.
Using the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as a stage, 24 cellular system operators have announced that they have formed a consortium in order to offer a unified front against Apple and the iPhone in the ongoing battle for the dollars involved in smartphone app sales. The Apple App Store is by far and away the leader in all categories in this battle of the apps: most available, most downloaded, most revenue, etc. This newly formed consortium intends to band together to help developers write apps more easily for the varied smartphone platforms that the group represents.
The consortium has brought together a wide variety of cell phone entities, including such unlikely partners as Sprint, Vodafone and China Mobile. At stake is a truly large piece of revenue. The Gartner Group estimates that last years smartphone app downloads came to a total of about 2.5 billion. Analysts estimate that downloads this year will total more than 4.5 billion, a gigantic growth factor, and that total revenue from app sales will approach $6.2 billion, according to a ZDNet story.
The consortium feels that Apple has an easier time than do their members, since Apple currently is currently a leader in handset sales and has the advantage of being on a single platform, giving app developers a clear development target. Conversely, the member of the new consortium represent a number of different platforms, and thus different programming paradigms, making it more difficult to attract developers: more work for fewer sales is not a good development scenario.
The consortium therefore intends to offer tools and other incentives to developers in order to induce them to develop more smartphone apps for a wider variety of platforms. This will be, of course, a tough sell. Developers are in business for make money, and will therefore tend to flock to the platform(s) from which they can derive the most revenue. Right now, that happens to be Apple and the iPhone, and it is unlikely that the new anti-Apple consortium will be able to sway that viewpoint much.
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