The Brewing Mobile Application Development War

mobile applications Lost amid the roar from investors and users after Monday’s big BlackBerry Bold product announcement was the start of a competition that will help determine what company becomes the leader of the smartphone market.

The $150-million BlackBerry fund, announced Monday, was established to encourage and ultimately fund the creation of mobile applications that will run on the smartphone, signals the start of a race between RIM and its competitors to capture the minds and keyboards of mobile app developers worldwide.

It’s a race that will garner less attention but can shift the balance of power in the nascent smartphone market. Why? Mobile services are seen as the next frontier of the information age. Sleek-looking smartphones won’t be enough to satisfy users and ultimately capture share for vendors. Mobile device manufacturers no longer can ship a good-looking smartphone and expect it to sell.

Instead, the smartphone makers want to put a full suite of applications at the fingertips of users. To do so, manufacturers need to have developers, internally and with partners, feverishly creating and refining applications that will make the smartphone an increasingly valuable device.

Even the oh-so-fashion conscious Apple has come to the realization that it’s all about the applications. Apple announced its App Store initiative in March, which will allow mobile application developers to distribute their software via the iTunes program making it a geek candy store of sorts for cell phone enthusiasts.

RIM’s less-discussed competitors, such as Nokia and Motorola to a lesser extent, have been wooing and working with developers for years.

By virtue of its install base and user base in the ICT industry, Apple and Nokia would seem to have the initial edge. But developers don’t necessarily care about history; they care about a viable platform and innovative vendor. Let the battle begin. We are a ways off from that goal considering the current physical limitations of mobile phones, the poor battery life associated with many of these devices and the outrageous price of data plans offered by Canadian carriers and other service providers in other parts of the industrialized world. Let’s solve those problems first; then talk to me about mobile applications.

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May 14, 2008 | Filed Under News Items and Commentary 

Comments

One Response to “The Brewing Mobile Application Development War”

  1. Stuart MacDonald on May 15th, 2008 6:41 pm

    Kevin, we just added Kevin Talbot who is VP of RBC Venture Partners and co-head of the Blackberry Partners Fund to the mesh calendar, doing a workshop. It’s not even up on the site yet, but it will be at the end of Day Two.

    - Stuart

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