The Setup
“Is it worth it to produce software for [name-a-mobile-device]?”
“I’ve heard that I would get screwed by [name-a-mobile-manufacturer] if I develop for them and try to port to [name-another-mobile-manufacturer]… is it true?”
Over the past several months, since the advent of the iPhone 3G and its competitors, I’ve received plenty of E-mail from our gentle readers inquiring as to whether it is safe and profitable to align with at least one (or in some cases, only one) mobile manufacturer or developer in order to produce software for target audiences on mobile devices.
Tough call. 
The Premise
As a software developer, you want to maximize your yield toward your target audience. In some cases, this means appealing to as wide of an audience as possible, taking advantage of ubiquity and sacrificing platform specificity for increased feature richness or detail. In other words, you are willing to pursue a lowest common denominator approach to development in order to garner as large of a target audience as possible, but you have factored in the loss of certain customers because you are not providing platform-specific capabilities.
In some cases, you may decide that you would rather cater to a potentially smaller customer base because you want to tap into those unique features that a particular platform offers that differentiates it from others; this is a way to create a distance away from your competitors, in some instances. It also may be the springboard to deepen your relationship with the platform vendor and may be used as a hook to attract other platform vendors to accommodate your development needs in order to bring your products to their platform.
Much of this type of product strategy is based upon timing: a common prevailing theme surrounding popular target platforms is the convergence of features over time. Of course, this runs counter to hardware vendors, who use their uniqueness factor to differentiate themselves from each other. But oddly enough, the hardware vendors (and OS vendors, and other platform vendors) want to have software that is identical or equivalent to their competitors– and, in their marketing literature, superior to the others– whenever they are chasing after the same target audience. To entice to their flock of existing developers, they are often willing to add certain features that you require to make your products work (although merely working, and working well, are not the same thing!).
Leveraging when to approach the different platform vendors with your software product, or even product lines, is then based upon when certain criteria are met, from your point of view, that allows for relatively easy entry onto their platforms. But given the renewed novelty surrounding the “app store” concept that the iPhone and iPod touch have tapped into, Apple’s competitors have stepped forward with their own online marketplaces; this, then, has accelerated the process to provide new venues for developer support. Herein lies the rub (and why developers have asking for advice): now that your proverbial hand is being forced, which platform should support first, and talent profiles should be brought to bear?
The Action
iTNews Australia posted an interesting story that compares some of the new mobile applications storefronts (“app stores”) that the various mobile device manufacturers and OS manufacturers have cobbled together. The following vendors were covered:
- Android Alliance
- Apple
- Microsoft
- RIM
Unfortunately, ITnews did not secure more details about Nokia’s app store offering, although it is clear that Nokia has one in the works.
The article provides a bit of useful information that savvy development directors should be able to tap into, particularly to present to the executive board and to the rank and file concerning changes in your product development roadmaps.
