Mobile app development is a huge business. In just over 18 months since the launch of the iPhone App Store, more than 3 billion iPhone apps have been downloaded.
According to a study by Gartner, mobile apps worth $6.2 billion will be purchased this year worldwide and this number is expected to grow to $29.47 billion by 2013.
Despite this huge market potential, the mobile application market has so far remained highly fragmented. In a bid to cash in on the fledgling app economy as well as to effectively counter Apple's dominance in this segment, a dozen mobile phone operators including Orange, Telefonica and AT&T have formed an alliance that will offer an open technology platform for developers to build applications that could reach out to over 2 billion customers.
It is also believed that a few handset manufacturers like Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG have indicated their support to the alliance. An announcement regarding this is expected to be made at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later today.
An open platform alliance of this nature will greatly help in consolidating the mobile app market that is today divided among the several mobile OS developers. The biggest casualty due to the fragmentation has so far been the app developers themselves who are often required to rebuild the same app several times to suit the different platforms. The alliance could thus minimize duplication of effort.
However, it is unlikely that such a partnership would affect Apple's app sales in any way. There are over 150,000 iPhone apps already available on the App Store today and with the imminent launch of iPad, opportunities at the App Store will remain exciting for app developers. Having said that, the open technology platform that could potentially serve billions of customers would attract several app developers. Would this mean that Apple's advantage over its rivals in owning a massive application store could soon cease to exist? We doubt it. What do you think?
[via Times Online]
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