App stores galore! Marketers to take on additional complexities and costs.

November 4th, 2008 The Insider Posted

Last month, RIM announced that it would be launching its own versions of online and on-device application storefronts for its Blackberry devices. Dubbed the “Blackberry Application Storefront,” the online store is slated to appear in March of 2009. It is unknown as to when the on-device portals may launch as RIM has stated that they would work with individual Operators to create customized storefronts.

Android’s application store currently featured on T-Mobile’s G1 handset has had some modicum of initial success albeit not quite on the level with the iPhone. We will have to wait until next quarter’s earnings to see some hard numbers from T-Mobile regarding G1 sales and application downloads.

Apple’s well publicized application store is still cruising along with approximately 200 million downloads via 13 million iPhones sold and counting as of their recent Q4 fiscal quarter announcement.

Nokia’s global application storefront, MOSH, which features applications built using J2ME, Flash Lite and Symbian as well as other technologies is much more open than the aforementioned stores. As of this posting, the MOSH download counter was at 94,653,057.

The emergence of application stores built around a specific handset and/or operating system will only continue to create additional complexity within the Mobile Marketing ecosystem and will certainly add to the costs of developing and promoting custom applications that run on the various platforms.

Marketers already struggling to keep up with MMA/Carrier off-deck compliance regulations, application testing guidelines and emerging technologies will now be tasked with familiarizing themselves on who to turn to have custom app work completed on their behalf. Perhaps more importantly, marketers will also need to uncover the best ways to advertise their new apps across the various distribution outlets. Other considerations will include;

* SDKs, SDKs, SDKs= $$$ in terms of acquiring in-house development talent
* Analytics – reporting from the various storefronts will differ – some firms provide app usage analytics.
* Accounting for the disparate revenue-share agreements
* Application maintenance, QA and hosting costs
* In-application advertising – how it works, what it costs, etc..
* Merchandizing costs at the various outlets
* Nuances of storefront vetting process – especially with Apple.

SIDE NOTE: I have heard anecdotally that custom iPhone app development can run into the low six-figures.

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