Expect even more app stores to spring up over the next year as IBM have created a new app store in a box designed to make it easier for operators to compete with Apple, Android, RIM, Samsung etc
What the world really needs like a hole in the head is yet another app store, so we were quite dismayed to see that IBM and the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) – the global alliance of telecommunications companies – have put their heads together to create a new cloud-based “white label” mobile app store.
The store is according to the release “designed to help mobile operators quickly build their own online application stores and offer subscribers innovative new applications and widgets for consumer and business use.”
IBM and WAC’s store uses a customisable device client and mobile app store that is pre-integrated with WAC’s wholesale application warehouse. The app store and client offering give subscribers the ability to easily browse, shop, download and install and rate WAC widgets and native applications.
The app store is built on IBM WebSphere Commerce software gives store owners the ability to enhance customers’ shopping experience by promoting applications and automatically providing discounts based on customer preferences and buying behaviors. The storefront can also provide targeted marketing campaigns to tailor the shopping experience.
For subscribers, the application store also makes the process of downloading and paying for applications as seamless as possible. Automatically populated with WAC’s catalogue of more than 12,000 applications, the new store front is available to WAC members via a cloud-based service so they can rapidly begin offering and selling new applications.
Does this stand a chance in hell of succeeding? We sincerely hope not. It’s just one more hurdle that developers face, and it’s one more nail in the app coffin that’s pushing us all towards HTML 5, and that can’t come soon enough.
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