Google Plans Store For Web Apps -- InformationWeek
Hmmm. It appears that Google is looking to directly monetize search outside of advertising and corporate search. This makes sense from a business perspective, but does it signal a fundamental shift in repositioning search to "Discovery"? It almost feels like a product line extension - same technology, repackaged. Is discovery worth 30% to a software developer. Couldn't I just search the general Web using the same tags or keywords on any any search engine. Sure as a developer, I'll need to pay for keywords to rise to the top, but it doesn't cost me 30% of my gross product revenue.
An app store is not marketing, recommending or supporting any given product - all the things a retailer or value-add reseller does for about the same margin. So, is discovery really worth 30%? Is distribution being artificially controlled via the app store model? When there are hundreds of thousands of titles in app store, what is your 30% really getting you?
Physical distribution margins are not even close to 30% - never have been for software, not even in the 80's. So unless my app store is actually proactively marketing my app, this seems like a high price to pay when I could have delivered it over-the air or via a standard PC download from my website.
Since my company develops software, I have to look at this positioning shift with a wary eye. Has Web 2.0 figured out that free is not a business model and ad revenue has its limits? If so, this is a good thing and sanity is returning to Web. It is up to the software developers channel to determine whether or not they are getting value for their money. Ask the hard questions. Is the app store just another form of a walled garden disguised as a better user experience or is there real value for your business? Is it a requirement of using the OS, or just an option? And what if you are buying for a business, can I buy a master copy and provision it all employees from one server?
Multi-channel strategies exist because people like to buy (or download) where they want to buy (or download). A "great" user shopping experience is more than just the buying/download process. It is also about how you learn about a product or service and where you can purchase it. Making it easy regardless of the "storefront" is key. Today, while I can find iPhone apps on "open" stores, such as Handango, as soon as I want to buy something I am redirected to Apple, so I cannot consolidate with my Android or Blackberry purchases.
The best platform vendors will build this level of flexibility into their software and business models. Making it easy regardless of the "storefront" or payment method is key. Forcing users into a single behavioral model - which is different for every platform - will simply drive developers and users to seek new, simple and more uniform Web-based approaches to software distribution and discovery.
No comments:
Post a Comment