Monday, October 25, 2010

Mac App store

What to expect from the Mac App store...


The Mac App Store will let Mac users buy apps using their iTunes accounts, then download and install apps in one step. Apple will also deliver app updates directly through the Mac App Store. Users running the current version of Mac OS X will get access to the Mac Apps Store within 90 days, Apple said.

Driving Higher App Use
An app store distribution channel for software may lead to greater use of apps, Hilwa speculated.


"Most of us use the main 10 apps on our PCs, and that's it," Hilwa explained. "But on smartphones we use far more apps because they're easy to buy and cost so much less. Jobs is making it easier to discover and buy apps," he opined.


"We'll be using more varieties of software, simply because it will be easier to buy and own," the Yankee Group's Howe said. "And the idea that I won't have to constantly do my own updates means I'll be more likely to use that software on an ongoing basis."


Going the app store route for software distribution might lead to smaller, less bloated apps, Hilwa suggested.


"Mobile apps are very granular; they only do one thing," Hilwa said. "Perhaps the app store concept will lead to smaller apps that are more granular and look more like smartphone apps. And if people can easily buy apps and compare prices, perhaps apps will get cheaper.


Impact on Software Vendors
"The Mac App Store is a completely new model for software distribution," Carl Howe, director of anywhere consumer research at the Yankee Group, told MacNewsWorld. "I think that, in the future, we'll see the old PC model of software distribution being about as relevant to software as 8-track tape decks are to music."

This will happen within two to three years, Howe remarked.

"Given Apple's control of the platform, it's certainly possible that it could use the App Store to change the way we buy applications," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderlene Group, told MacNewsWorld. "Two years is certainly possible."

Other software developers, such as Microsoft, may well follow suit, but it will "likely take more than two years" to implement an app store for PCs, Enderle said.

"We're already surfing the Web from apps now; we call them browsers," Enderle added. "If a proxy model takes off, which could be security driven, we could be using windows into secure proxy servers within a few years of the software industry offering apps through app stores," he explained.

"This is about a distribution channel strategy," Al Hilwa, a program director at IDC, told MacNewsWorld. "Jobs is saying everyone's going to love buying from Apple because they know Apple."

The traditional market for software is a third-party market, Hilwa pointed out. "You go to a store - Best Buy or what have you, buy a software package, then install it on your computer. So the publisher has to have a retail channel, a retail strategy and a distribution strategy. Now Jobs is saying you will have a distribution channel called the App Store, and this will make it easy to discover apps. You don't have to run around to figure out where to buy an app."

For more information on the Mac store Click Here

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