On Friday, March 25, 2011 8:00:30 AM UTC-7, MagouyaWare wrote: > > *> What all these Markets should be doing is making sure that they > interoperate, because us developers *do* want to deploy to all of them, but > we don't need the extra work of maintaining several versions or deployments > for each one.* > > In a Utopian society that would be great. And I agree it would benefit us > as developers. But how exactly would that benefit their bottom-line? > Remember... these are businesses. They are in it for the sole purpose of > making money. Interoperability doesn't really have the ROI to make it very > feasible. >
The sole purpose of app stores is not necessarily to make money. Except in Amazon's case, ROI may have little to do with the decisions involved in their operation. Contrary to popular impression, Apple's App Store is primarily about establishing customer lock-in to their platform not making money. (Microeconomics tells us the less that apps cost (thus less per unit profit from the App Store) the better it is for Apple's actual business which is selling hardware.) I have serious doubts that Google's Android Market is really all that much about making money. Android Market's primary purpose is to provide a standard distribution channel for Android apps thus enabling the platform as a whole. It's secondary purpose is to provide a monetization opportunity for Android apps, again, to support the platform as a whole. Third might be to foster development of Google's payment services. Somewhere way down the list (if it's even there) is making money for Google. Amazon's Android Appstore is much more likely about making money since Amazon's business really is content sales, and they see apps as another type of content. - Richard Lawler -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
