A slight problem with this question is that it limits what an "application" really is. The fact is that the majority of programmers do not represent commercial software vendors but rather develop in- house one-of-kind software solutions. That is a market which Microsoft more or less owns on the PC (for fat clients), and also has a major stake in on the mobile side. I have for example never heard about any enterprise app written for Symbian in spite of Nokia's huge market-share.
My hope is that Android will be at least as good as Windows Mobile for this market and it may reach there is just a couple of years from now. For those who intend to create commercial software applications for Android, the only reasonable advice is to concentrate on things that neither are core to Google, nor the mobile phone industry in general. A possibility is of course creating better replacements for standard apps and selling these to handset makers like the HTC TouchFlo GUI for Windows Mobile. Personally, I doubt that such endeavors will be particularly long-lived. The true money in mobile phones is in services because these generate a steady stream of revenue and are not easily replaced by another application. That is, most mobile applications will probably be for free since their purpose is only to enable a service (which may or may not be free). AR On Dec 19, 7:40 pm, majatt <[email protected]> wrote: > I was thinking the same thing but if you look at the number of > downloads for the Picasa app its not that mind blowing, as its really > depends on if you use Picasa. Then I looked at the scoreboard app but > I didn't bother to download it as I already have an app particularly > catered to the one sport I really follow. > > So I sat back and took a broader look, right now people really want a > video players that can play just about anything and if google was to > release one (even tho I see devs saying that the SDK is the limiter > with creating video players) that could do what the people wanted it > would kinda crush those devs. The reason why that isn't bad is because > none of the video players cost money and as long as google's > theoretical video player was open and some of those free devs could > use the code and improve their own offering or even offer code to > improve Google's then everyone wins. So for me it isn't that big a > concern. > > Another good example is the Steel browser, it has a very good UI > including auto-rotate and an iPhone like virtual keyboard. Very > importantly it gets updates pretty regularly and provides a very solid > alternative to the built in browser and here is a situation where > Google launched an app with the phone and someone with a more agile > development environment is creating something that people want. > > As long as the big G doesn't bully the devs I don't see it being a bad > thing. > > On Dec 19, 11:16 am, JP <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > I suppose we all noticed that the elephant in the room has released a > > fistful of free apps, Picasa upload, MyMaps for Google Maps come to > > mind. All nice work of course, and these apps help lift the quality of > > the Market. But is this a good thing? I wonder if this deters > > independent developers and firms developing quality apps themselves. > > Who knows what Google's up to, and once they release "against" a > > similar app that you happen to work on, it's Game Over. > > Your thoughts on this? Should Google share their plans for app > > development in an effort to mitigate a cannibalization of the Market?- Hide > > quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" 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-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
