Apple and Android are at the top of developer interest as development platforms, an Appcelerator poll of 1,028 developers suggests.
In fact, developer interest largely is a two-horse race between Apple and Google. The "true game changing news" is Android, Appcelerator says. In fact, sentiment has swung fairly quickly towards Android as the clear "second choice" for developers, after Apple.
In January 2010, 86 percent of developers were interested in iPhone and 68 percent were interested in Android, an 18 point spread. That spread has closed to just six points now (iPhone 88 percent, Android 82 percent).
About 80 percent of developers say they are interested in developing for the iPad.
Developers indicated they were most interested in developing eBooks, entertainment/media applications, business applications, medical applications, and education applications.
Service provider product managers essentially have lost control of their products, says Al Brisard, Vertek VP. Instead, product managers essentially have been reduced to setting service definitions and pricing. Operations and finance pretty much control the rest. As often is the case, that isn't necessarily the best way to match features with end user demand.
If you want to know why service providers sometimes cannot create compelling new products, much less get them to market quickly, perhaps this is one reason why.
Despite the hype about mobile apps, it remains difficult to "monetize" them, for several reasons. Most apps sell for low prices, so a developer needs huge volume. But volume means getting noticed, and simply creating an app and listing in on an app store does not guarantee attention.
That increasingly means a successful app not only has to provide value, but has to be promoted. And that means all the traditional thinking about traditional marketing still holds. Developers have to take affirmative steps to promote their apps; they won't sell themselves.
"The App Store is not a marketing vehicle; it is a distribution vehicle," said Raven Zachary, president of digital creative firm Small Society.
Of course, not all apps are sold. Some are themselves marketing vehicles. But an iPhone app can cost $50,000 or more for an agency to develop. So even the marketing vehicle must be marketed.
Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile have almost 260 million wireless subscribers. The U.S. population is 305 million people and some of those are too young to need or use a phone. Others don’t want one.
During the last quarter, Verizon added only 423,000 new contract subscribers and AT&T only 512,000 customers, rates that are lower than has been the case in past quarters.
So what does that mean? What it always means: providers will have to create new products to sell to a base of existing customers, rather than selling more of the existing product to new customers. In the cable and telecom business, that has meant both getting into new lines of business as well as "bundling."
For wireless providers, the new product is wireless broadband, immediately in the form of more smartphone data plans, but over time more use of wireless to support sensor networks of various types.
But there are wider policy implications as well. U.S. regulators sometimes behave as though nothing they do will seriously impede the ability of U.S. service providers to continue to invest and innovate. But both the wireline and wireless segments of the communications business face huge challenges. Existing growth models are exhausted and competition is growing.
Instead of behaving in ways that essentially are punitive, perhaps regulators should ask what they can do to allow the fastest-possible transition to new business models as the old models continue to waste away.
Telecom is not a growth industry; that should be obvious to all observers. The big challenge is to foster a transition to a sustainable model that will support continued investment in state-of-the-art facilities. Telecom, to put it bluntly, is not an industry that needs to be punished; it needs to be fostered.
Palm Runs Out Of Options As HTC Reviews, Declines To Buy The Company: "According to a report based on a source from an Asia-based Reuters correspondent, smartphone maker HTC has decided not to bid for Palm after looking at the company’s numbers. The source, which reportedly has direct knowledge of the talks, said there “weren’t enough synergies to take the deal forward”.
That leaves Palm, which has been struggling to boost sales of its new range of smartphones, running out of options fast."
What is described as the world's first augmented reality flash mob will happen at Dam Square in Amsterdam April 24 at 2 p.m. Attendees using Android and iPhone handsets will see three-dimensional statues using the Layar application.
Sander Veenhof is an organizer of the event, and TAB Worldmedia helped produce the content. "You can actually walk around them to look at them from all angles by just using your phone and the Layar browser," says Veenhof.
To prepare, download and install the Layar Augmented Reality browser and look for the layar using “ARflashmob” under the local tab.
Ringio will launch a new cloud-based "rich calling" service for small and mid-sized businesses that might be mistaken for a hosted PBX sort of service but actually is more a hosted customer relationship management solution.
Ringio’s service allows users to map existing phone numbers to the CRM functions, which are available either on a desktop client or on Android-based smart phones.
The service is designed to be easy to set up and use, and requires no changes to existing hardware or software.
“We define ‘rich calling’ as bringing a telephone call and relevant information about the caller together at the same time to enrich communication and information sharing, says Ringio co-founder and Chairman Michael Zirngibl.
One example is that if an existing customer calls, notes about prior interactions with that customer are displayed, allowing any call agent to "pick up where the last agent left off" in a more-seamless way.
Ringio also features "presence" features so if a call has to be transferred, the call agent can be sure the other party is available to speak.
Ringio is launching the service’s own integrated call-control and screen-pop client for the PC, Mac desktop or Linux. Ringio also automatically retrieves and synchronizes records built using Google’s Contacts database, and plans are under way to integrate Ringio with Salesforce.com by later this summer.
The service will be provided directly to business customers through www.ringio.com. Pricing starts at $99 per month for four users, with additional users at $25 per month. Ringio is considering distribution partnerships and invites inquiry via partners@ringio.com.
Ringio’s intelligent call-routing functionality is being provided by Voxeo, a longtime platform host with an extensive history in IVR and convergent communications.
Zirngibl says it takes as little as10 minutes to set up for the first time.
