Why Developers Write First for iTunes App Store, Later for Google Play

Money talks. The rich get richer. The big get bigger. All three rules of thumb apply to mobile app stores. Using revenue per app at Apple's App Store as an index, developers ought to favor iTunes, as they will tend to earn more than four times as much revenue as the same apps created for Google Play, the Android app store.



Amazon Appstore revenue is 89 percent of iTunes App Store revenue, and Google Play revenue is 23 percent of iTunes App Store revenue, according to Flurry.

Are "Bits" "Just Bits?" Almost Never

What is the difference between Comcast selling cable TV service and Comcast selling a IP-delivered video service? Answer: potentially only the regulatory regime each service operates under. There are, to be sure, many important business ramifications. But video services regulation now is as broken as voice regulation has become, as virtually all services and all networks use Internet Protocol.

For purposes of engineering, it often is true that "a bit is just a bit." For business and regulatory purposes, that almost never is the case. It matters who sold a bit, who bought a bit, where the seller is located, where the buyer is located, what equipment was used to receive and use the bits, what sort of network the bits moved over, and any number of other distinctions.

These days, in the video entertainment business, a key distinction exists between a "managed network and service," and the "un-managed Internet," as different rules apply to treatment of bits in each bucket. Basically, entertainment bits delivered over a virtual "managed network" are exempt from "Internet" rules, even when delivered over the same physical network.

The reasons are largely because in the past legacy services including voice, TV, newspapers and data services were regulated in distinct ways, and those distinctions remain in place, even if the technology used for delivery now has largely converged.

There are many practical implications, though. Comcast can use a managed approach to deliver hundreds of gigabits worth of data, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as "cable TV," without charging any of that usage against a customer's broadband access bandwidth allocation.

Data services purchased by business users likewise are exempt from the "Internet access rules."

But Comcast cannot, on its "high speed access" service, discriminate between different bits, meaning all services are "best effort" only. And usage of bits in that manner have a physical cap, each month.

So the reality is that some bits on Comcast's network are treated one way, other bits get treated differently, from a regulatory point of view. That means users are not "charged" usage for watching television bits sold as part of Comcast's Xfinity video service.

Users are charged for using any "Internet" apps, though. In the same way, Verizon's users are not charged for use of IP voice services as part of their high-speed-access services, even though, increasingly, every service Verizon delivers uses IP and flows over the same facilities.

PayPal, Gas Station Chain use GPS to Launch Mobile Payment

Regional gas station and convenience store chain Cumberland Farms has launched a new "SmartPay" mobile app that uses GPS to launch a PayPal account transaction and offers a five-cent-per-gallon discount for doing so.

The app can be launched at a supported Cumberland Farms location, and then GPS is used to determine where the user is. Once the user enters the pump number, the app automatically makes the payment and emails a receipt.

Some might argue that is perhaps a more-interesting use of "location-fixing" technology than near field communications.

Cloud Computing Will Drive Revenue, But What Types, How Much?

Service providers widely believe cloud computing will be an important source of new revenue, and there is truth to that belief, but possibly not the way many are thinking about the business. Cloud computing includes a number of discrete potential revenue streams, ranging from direct retail sales of applications to end users, either consumer or business. There is the rental of computing cycles and storage capabiltiy, as well as "platform" as a service, where a customer might rent an applications environment, often for purposes of developing new apps, for example.

By most current projections, SaaS will represent the biggest business, representing the most revenue. IaaS might be the next biggest, while PaaS will remain the smallest business, in terms of revenue. One forecast by the Yankee Group has SaaS representing perhaps 70 percent of total revenue in 2013.

North America, specifically the U.S., currently represents the largest opportunity for SaaS, and it is the most mature of the regional markets, Gartner argues. SaaS software revenue is forecast to total $9.1 billion in 2012, up from $7.8 billion in 2011, Gartner says. But that is revenue earned by software suppliers, not directly by hosting companies, data center providers or telcos.

North America shows the highest SaaS deployments in expense management, financials, email and office suites, for example. It might be prudent to discount the notion that cloud computing revenues for service providers running data centers will capture very much of that sort of revenue.

Verizon Promises Mobile Video Service

Mobile video is the benefit for end users if the Federal Communications Commission allows Verizon Wireless to buy spectrum from several U.S. cable operators. Though it is not formally linked to the spectrum sale, Verizon has agreed to provide its products to Comcast, Time Warner, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks under “agency” agreements, in return for Verizon rights to sell cable products under similar agreements.

The agency agreements allow the cable companies to sell existing Verizon products, under the Verizon brand name and retail packaging, and allow Verizon to sell existing cable products, likewise under the existing cable names and packages. If the deal is approved, the partners would, in five years, be able to buy wholesale from the other partners and then “rebrand” them for retail sale.

One suspects there will be a tie-in with the new online video venture Verizon has created with Coinstar, the owner of the Redbox DVD rental kiosk business, though that has not been formally talked about, in public, by Verizon or Coinstar.

One suspects there are other implications, if Verizon’s spectrum buy is approved, and as plans for mobile video are developed. One clear problem is the amount of bandwidth any mobile video service would represent. Many users would find their monthly data caps are reached after watching just two movies, for example.

That suggests something will have to be done that removes that threat. Many have speculated that one solution is to exempt the viewing of such video from user data consumption caps. That also implies, though, that the video service providers and content owners can agree on some reasonable formula for “paying for” the use of such bandwidth.

Proponents of “network neutrality” might have problems with such deals, but that is one reason some have argued against confusing “no blocking of lawful applications” with separate policies to manage networks for performance, or to create different charging mechanisms for different applications and use cases.

Entertainment video has been the poster child for such differential pricing. Other real-time services such as voice and conferencing have been similar examples of applications that virtually demand packet prioritization to maintain quality of experience, at times of network congestion.

Congress, FTC Look at "Mobile Money"

Though executives at banking and financial services firms, as well as telcos, are well aware of the key role regulators play in shaping their businesses, technology firms, especially software concerns, probably do not fully realize how much regulation ultimately will shape the mobile commerce, mobile payments and mobile wallet businesses.

At the moment, most of the activity consists of efforts by participants to get traction with key stakeholders, early in the creation of what most hope will prove to be large businesses.

At some point, regulation is going to play a bigger role in shaping the fortunes of contestants, though.

"Money" is a highly regulated function, and banking likewise is a business with lots of regulatory context. Some of those rules relate to consumer protection, while many others limit and define the lawful scope of what can be done.

So it is no accident that both Congress held hearings on mobile money in March 2012, while the Senate and Federal Trade Commission also plan their own hearings in April 2012.

“We are, I think, on a precipice of some fundamental change in the way money is exchanged between consumers and businesses,” said Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) during the House Financial Services Committee consumer credit panel’s hearing on The Future of Money.“


The Senate banking committee also will hold the latest in its series of planned sessions on the mobile payments issue, and it plans to call witnesses from the Federal Reserve system to discuss information security and financial disclosure issues.


Separately the FTC will hold hearings on April 26, 2012. 


Among the questions are "jurisdiction," as one might argue the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Federal Reserve or  Federal Communications Commission have roles to play. 


Unfortunately, some contestants will wind up finding out that regulatory bodies have imposed rules that make some business plans unworkable, others merely much less profitable. 

"Post-PC" Means More Androids than Windows Devices

Android will be the leading platform for “smart connected devices” by 2016, overtaking Windows and iOS in units shipped, according to International Data Corporation.

The IDC predicts that in 2016 shipments of smart phones, PCs and tablets will reach 1.84 billion. This will be more than double the 916 million shipped in 2011, which created $489 billion (£308bn) in revenue.