He also discusses the commercialisation of the platform and its outreach to developers and users.

HTC is on the hunt for device-specific Android apps

As Android’s march towards mobile OS domination appears to continue unchecked, device manufacturers are joining the scrum to differentiate themselves from the competition. HTC has joined the ranks of manufacturers increasingly looking to pull in the developers to create device-specific apps,  announcing a dev-friendly programme to be launched in parallel with an SDK for its Sense user interface.

According to HTC, HTCdev, which is scheduled to launch this summer, will feature access to “an extensive resource library of tutorials, best practices, documentation and support” through a new web site www.htcdev.com. The site will also offer a user feedback channel to HTC “for ongoing investments and improvements to the developer toolset and program resources.” The scheme is aimed at encouraging  developers to work on applications specifically for HTC devices.

HTC says that the OpenSense SDK will be the programme’s “core offering” that will enable Android developers to “more deeply integrate into the HTC Sense 3.0 experience.” The framework will also offer APIs and sample code for 3D display and the tablet pen.

HTC isn’t the only device manufacturer courting developers. Motorola is among those offering Android developers a support system and Samsung launched its developer forum in May this year. Samsung’s programme includes a remote test lab feature that allows developers to install and test applications on Samsung devices over the web.

With the developer community becoming more important than ever, many carriers are faced with the same issue as consumers taking their first plunge into the world of apps – how to find the gems of quality amid the worthless stones. Vodafone’s answer is an annual competition, Mobile Clicks, which aims to identify and develop the best, most innovative mobile internet start ups. Telecoms.com caught up with Hemant Madan, Vodafone’s head of developer marketing and the company’s Android app store, ahead of this year’s event.

This year, seven Vodafone operations are taking part in the competition, which takes a Dragon’s Den style approach with three judging rounds – two at local country level, one of which is a physical pitch to judges, which Madan describes as “Good practice for going up against real VCs.” All seven local winners will then go on to represent their country in a live final at the PICNIC festival in the Netherlands in September.

Vodafone Ventures is involved in the judging process and one of the objectives of the division is to make the best use of the natural advantage the operator has to get the first move on new innovations that arise as a result of the competition.

But the event also serves to help Vodafone build up its own app store offering – the Vodafone Shop for Android. Madan, like many in this industry, believes that the openness championed by Android has inherent advantages and disadvantages.

“Lots of phone users are upgrading to from their basic device or feature phone to a smartphone and as a result they are considering their first apps,” Madan says. “But the challenge for these users, especially Android users, is that they are inundated with choice of apps.”

By solving one problem – where to find the apps, app stores create another problem – how to discover relevant apps. Madan sees the Android Market as a distribution route for developers to access many countries, but notes that it is still difficult to be discovered.

Which is where the Vodafone Shop comes in: “The developer community is more important than ever. The apps industry is growing and services are becoming more open, so the objective of the shop is to offer higher quality apps and differentiate itself from the Android Market because it’s curated and an environment with a focus on quality. As the industry becomes more open the main objective is to put more innovation in front of the consumer,” he says.

True enough, the Android Market has been dogged by criticism of its poor search and categorisation functionality as well as the appearance of copied, pirated and malware booby trapped apps in its storefront.

“There’s more potential for misappropriation in this environment, so with curation we can put a higher focus on quality and vetting. We’re not running a walled garden in the Apple context but do have requirements which developers have to meet. We look at the quality of applications and focus on categories,” he says.

To help consumers dip their toes into the app waters Vodafone bundles selected apps together in starter packs, which for a London based user might include National Rail, TFL, a tube map and local news applications.

Yet Madan acknowledges that there is a problem with fragmentation, due to the availability of more than one app store on the same device, but counters that while distribution is key element, higher discovery capabilities are more attractive.

He is also wary of the fickle loyalty of the developer community. “We do have a few developers we work closely with who prepare apps for us, but nobody owns the developer community. Developers own their own agenda,” he says. So how can Vodafone attract them? “90 per cent of app downloads are free. But we don’t want ad revenue – the overhead is too much to recover ad revenues for us. So developers supported by ads alone need distribution and have to deal with fragmentation as a result. We target developers who want to be able to make money from paid for apps which can be bought via a secure and trusted mechanism that only the operator can offer. “

Developers are big boys and girls. Let developers set their own price.

There’s been a flurry of tweets and posts recently regarding some of the terms of conditions imposed on developers to commercialize their Android apps. As one of the oldest app stores around (.est. 2005) it never ceases to surprise us how people fawn on developers to get their content and then impose draconian terms on them that make monetizing their excruciatingly painful.

As an app store, working with developers really isn’t that difficult. Basically you have to listen to what they say, provide them tools to get their content in front of consumers and try to help them make money. But that last part seems to be a challenge for certain organizations. Developers can’t make great content if they can’t pay rent. They can’t pay rent unless they are given some basic, common sense freedoms on how to monetize their content. We’d figured maybe the easiest way to communicate this would be through a Manifesto of certain guiding principles app stores should strive to have to help developers make money:

1. Let developers set their own price. Developers are big boys and girls. They know how important price is and they know it can only be used so often to be effective. Unlike app stores, they also only generally have a few apps to use this on so when they use it they need to make it count. It’s fine to suggest pricing to developers but ultimately only they know what they need to make a living and they could / should study consumer behavior enough to understand what the most effective price point is.

2. Let developers choose their billing partner. We compete in an open economy. In particular, Android is supposed to be open (though the door is closing more quickly with each passing day). Billing is no different. There are better and worse suppliers. Developers should be allowed to work with multiple partners to ensure a) they have the partner that converts best and b) they have the partner that monetizes best. If an app store has its own billing that’s fine. Give developers options and ultimately they and consumers will pick what solution works best for them. Otherwise it’s like going to the movies and always having to pay with Diners Club (who even uses that anymore?)

3. Don’t tie down developers’ ability to promote across store fronts: In an ideal world, Android distribution is supposed to be open (thank you AT&T for helping us get closer to that reality). App stores shouldn’t hamper developers’ ability to leverage promotions or placement in other stores through rigid pricing policies. App stores should realize that developers will look to different app stores for different promotional opportunities. If I can’t get app store A to feature their game but App Store B will feature it if they discount it then why not be able to this? Android is supposed to benefit developers through open distribution, if stores abuse pricing to reduce this distribution it defeats the whole purpose behind open distribution and ultimately makes it harder to pay the rent.

4. Show developers some respect for the product they create and communicate that: If app stores set pricing it should be in conjunction with developers. At the very least, App stores should provide multiple price points to choose from as well as case studies, best practices and advice to developers on when / how to manage the price life cycle to optimize revenues. Back in the much criticized carrier days as a developer I would often work with carriers to agree on pricing and we would jointly agree on how to manage this. App stores should and do have an opinion on pricing of apps given their wider view of the market and they should communicate this. However, to build goodwill they should work with developers and not independently of them.

The app space is an amorphous, rapidly shifting landscape. The technology, distribution and pricing are ever changing and make it difficult for developers to build great products and successful monetize them. What the app stores need to do is give developers flexibility, tools, support and advice on how to this and not dictate to them. As app stores we need to keep in mind that ultimately content is what consumers come to us for. It’s a bit tough to meet that demand if you ignore developers or worse, impose restrictive commercial policies on them. We can do better than that.

Patrick Mork is CMO of GetJar

Telefónica admitted that operators had not had the best relationship with developers in the past

European carrier Telefónica joined forces with Microsoft on Monday, in a bid to improve its relationship with the developer community. José Valles, head of Telefónica’s BlueVia developer programme, openly admitted that operators had not had the best relationship with developers in the past before proclaiming that all that is about to change.

“Telcos used to see developers as demanding,” Valles said. “The kind of words they use to describe us [carriers] are: slow, bureaucratic, arrogant and greedy. Developers were not seen as a source of revenue.”

Valles acknowledged the harsh reality that drove developers into the arms of Apple and Android and the respective app stores that have since become a real threat to the carrier business model.

Through a partnership with Microsoft, which knows a thing or two about developers, Telefónica will seek to readdress that balance and win the developer community over. The deal essentially opens up Telefónica’s BlueVia platform to Microsoft’s six million strong developer community on the .Net framework – think Silverlight, Visual Studio and Azure. It expands app development opportunities across a range of platforms, including mobile devices, PC and games consoles like the Xbox, combining networks, software and services for the benefit of the developers.

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BlueVia, which launched in February, builds on Telefónica’s existing developer programmes, O2 Litmus in the UK, Open MovilForum in Spain, Movistar Developers Platform in Mexico and Plataforma do Desenvolvedores Vivo in Brazil, offering up a collection of APIs allowing engineers to hook into network services.

Knut Aasrud, general manager of Microsoft Communications Services was enthusiastic about the partnership because: “Telefónica is the only carrier catering to the developer community today. It’s unique.” That said, he told telecoms.com that the deal is not in any way exclusive.

The partnership seemed to strike a chord with the handful of developers on hand for the launch as well. This is probably because the favoured app store revenue share model means that developers shouldn’t have to worry about up front costs to get access to network APIs. Instead, developers get between ten and 20 per cent of revenues from SMS transactions and mobile advertising as well as retaining 70 per cent of application sales and subscription revenues. One of the big draws of the model is reoccurring revenues. Also, Telefónica handles all the billing on the developer’s behalf.

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Developers are registering for WP7 at a rate of 1,000 a week, Microsoft said

Microsoft has revealed a number of improvements to its developer relationship for Windows Phone 7, the platform that marks its latest assault on the smartphone market. The firm said that the first payments to developers would be made a little ahead of schedule, and it is now able to offer feedback to developers on the performance of their apps within the Windows Phone Marketplace.

The announcements were made in a post on the Windows Phone developer blog from Todd Brix, a senior director of product management on the project.

There are nearly 4,000 apps in the Marketplace now, Brix revealed, from more than 18,000 registered developers. The first payments for Apps sold since the launch of WP7 in October are expected to be made in the fourth week of January, he said, after which developers whose apps have crossed minimum payout thresholds will be remunerated monthly.

Developers looking to find out if there is money coming their way can now access data on the performance of their products within the Marketplace, both in terms of volume downloads and revenue generated. The reports can be filtered by date, country and application, Brix wrote.

He made reference to a number of complaints from developers over Microsoft’s cumbersome registration process and promised that improvements had been made. He said that 91 per cent of applications submitted in the last month had been certified and published within two days of submission and that 86 per cent of new developers that register in the App Hub have had their accounts vetted and validated within ten days. Brix said that more than 1,000 developers are registering each week.

Improvements have also been made to the Microsoft Advertising SDK for WP7, he said. The full post is here.

Orange promised developers a faster route to its global subscriber base

International carrier Orange has announced an overhaul of its own-branded application store that it said will dramatically cut the time it takes for developers to get their apps to Orange customers.

Orange Partner Connect allows developers to submit applications online through a single portal interface for distribution—if deemed suitable—across the Orange footprint, the carrier said. The initial phase of the project, which begins this month, caters only to developers of applications for Android handsets, although Orange said that support for Java and Blackberry platforms will be available in the first quarter of next year.

Orange said that developers can register online; sign a single online agreement to distribute their applications through the Orange App Shop in the markets of their choice; submit applications; create their publishing account; benefit from application review and quality assurance testing from Orange experts; know when their applications go on sale in each county; monitor sales and downloads; and collect payments.

The firm said that it will be giving developers a 70/30 split of revenues, although developers will be given the option to channel some of their share into marketing programmes that could see their applications given extra exposure on the Orange digital inventory.

“We have learned from our experience in publishing Orange-branded applications on various app stores and listened to the needs of application developers to create a service that works for them. Orange Partner Connect has been designed so that our developer partners can benefit from Orange’s global scale, local presence and trusted customer relationships. With this new service we aim to establish a transparent win-win business partnership that developers can trust to truly market their applications to local audiences,” said Yves Tyrode, Executive Vice President of Orange Technocentre.

The WAC has announced the availability of the WAC 1.0 specification

The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), the alliance designed to build an open platform for delivering applications to all mobile phone users, has expanded its member base with the addition of 32 new organisations from across the industry. The body also announced the availability of the WAC 1.0 specification on Monday.

WAC 1.0 is based upon JIL 1.2.2 and carries on the work of the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) – an older but similar initiative, which was subsumed by the WAC in February.

Initially, the WAC platform will allow operators to distribute applications through their respective application storefronts and charge users through their existing phone bill. Under this model, developers will set the application price and will receive a revenue share for the transaction, defined on an operator-by-operator basis. WAC is a not-for-profit organisation and will receive a small transaction fee for each application to cover its operating costs. Only in the future will WAC offer business models that enable additional purchases from within an application; leverage network capabilities, such as location, to enhance an application; and facilitate the serving of ads.

The specification is available to download at www.wholesaleappcommunity.com

The initiative is some way behind similar ecosystems already in existence, yet has attracted a total of 48 members, with newcomers including: Accenture, Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, América Móvil, Bell Mobility, Bouygues Telecom, China Unicom, Hutchison 3 Group, KDDI, LG Uplus, MTS, Orascom Telecom, Rogers Communications and SFR.

“The influx of new members, combined with our continued delivery against key milestones, demonstrates that the WAC initiative is gaining significant momentum in the market,” said Peter Suh, CEO of WAC. “The availability of the WAC 1.0 specification sends out a strong message to the developer community that we are committed to working with them to create cross-platform applications that will benefit the entire mobile communications ecosystem.”

Verizon Wireless made a total of 20 different APIs (application programming interfaces) available to developers

US telco Verizon Wireless on Wednesday made a total of 20 different APIs (application programming interfaces) available to developers, opening up its network to new messaging and location-based services.

Verizon made the announcement at its Developer Community (VDC) Conference, taking place this week in Las Vegas. Messaging APIs will allow developers to create applications and services that send, receive and request receipt of text and multimedia messages, including features such as “link-to-buy” a product; while location APIs will allow developers to request and incorporate location information in applications and services on most smartphones at a granular level, or via ‘coarse location’, which has an average range of one to two miles and works with all Verizon Wireless phones.

“This new Verizon API opens the door to location access for a whole new class of developers that want to take advantage of location in the cloud,” said Tasso Roumeliotis, chief executive officer of Location Labs.

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Alcatel-Lucent will get its hands on OpenPlug’s ELIPS Studio - an open software development environment

Infrastructure vendor Alcatel-Lucent on Wednesday announced the acquisition of mobile application tools developer OpenPlug, giving it a strong presence in the developer space.

Through the acquisition, Alcatel-Lucent will get its hands on OpenPlug’s ELIPS Studio – an open software development environment allowing Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to create and deploy applications simultaneously on the iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Linux and other proprietary operating systems.

The vendor will now be able to extend this functionality to service providers, enterprises and developers so they can create and deploy applications across multiple mobile devices and within service provider app stores. Alcatel-Lucent believes this means applications that had previously only been available on smartphones can now be deployed to lower tier devices, opening up opportunities in emerging markets.

While demand for mobile apps is growing, the firm believes that so is the fragmentation of mobile development platforms and tools and this purchase is set to address that.

The move follows Alcatel-Lucent’s June acquisition of ProgrammableWeb – a source of API-related content.

“Being able to provide more applications across multiple devices helps service providers significantly broaden their app store content to create more value for consumers,” said Laura Merling, vice president of Alcatel-Lucent’s global developer strategy. “As service providers typically offer multiple mobile devices to their subscriber base, the OpenPlug software can help them reduce time to market by as much as 80 per cent by allowing them to easily port an application to all of their devices. And this isn’t purely a mobile play – the software can be extended to support application development for IPTV set top boxes, game consoles, even the ng Connect LTE Connected Car.”

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