App Store changes everything???

With all the (justified) hype around the runaway success of app store (for Apple, and a few of the app store developers, anyways), it seems that all the other Mobile OS vendors/ handset manufacturers are following suit (see link). Nokia launched their "Ovi" store, Microsoft is really repurposing its storefront to be the "Windows Marketplace", Android marketplace will now have paid apps, Palm is doing some stuff, as is RIMM with the Blackberry store ... heck, even Samsung is doing something here.

From the vendors point of view, the key question is whether their app store business models will prove to be sustainable enough to a) support the investment and b) foster customer loyalty. Since Apple does have a vertically integrated strategy, I believe that there will be room for 2-3 other vendors, which means there will be some consolidation similar to what happened on OS platforms.

From a software developer's or apps provider's perspective, I think we will see something the same set of developers developing and porting their apps to the different platforms - initially, those will mean complete re-writes of these apps... in time, there will be more standardization. The viability of many of these apps is still debatable, given the infancy of the model (see Letter to Steve) - more standardization on the platform side will definitely help.

One other impact that the app store model might well have is on the PC - does this mean that we will have an iTunes for all Software that we use on our PCs? The micro-payment infrastructure might actually help traditional software app providers to re-think everything....

Hopefully this is some food of thought for you... as you try to digest this, here is something on a lighter note (my contribution to Dilbert.com and the corporate world)...