Apps War: How to Choose a Battlefield

It may be the best news that we could hope for in the market. The GSMA (News - Alert) has added a new site called WholesaleAppCommunity.com.

 

The stated objective is to be an open platform. The carriers are uniting to compete against Apple (News - Alert) with wholesale applications. The fact that the group includes many of Apple’s partners seems to be lost on a few people, as is the fact that most of the apps on the Apple are available from the web.

 

I will put on my Bell hard hat and give you the strategy that makes sense.

 

Let’s look at the enemy Apple. They are brilliant at building user interfaces. Lots of web phone strategies existed before the application bonanza with Apple. But Apple had figured out how to make things easy for the customer and how to get the pricing right.

 

Ease of use and low cost of entry made the solution viral. And the market was open for the taking, because of the mistakes made in the music business. It should be acknowledged that Steve Jobs efforts in Pixar may have been the cohesive glue that made him a content king.

 

These are the strengths that the adversary has.

 

Now for a brief reality check.

 

To compete with someone who knows content is difficult of an industry that is supposed to connect a conversation but not listen in. Content wise the symphonies of the Bell Telephone Hour may still be the best ever produced by our industry.

 

On the other hand you have an Arsenal at your disposal and connecting things is what the carriers do well.

 

LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony Ericsson (News - Alert) want to collaborate on ways to make apps seamless between them this would a good thing.

 

In theory this should match up well to the efforts that have been going on to create the IP exchange associated with the GSMA, but be open to the idea that these companies can represent a willingness to be more creative in distribution.

 

For example, what if they partnered to enable a peer-to-peer application sharing solution that no longer was about an app store? It may not sound as profitable but actually could be a better model for supporting wholesale services.

 

If Apple has an Achilles heel in its video, that is. With video content they are strong, but video capture and support of things like Adobe Flash and On2 Technologies is not on their radar.

 

The issue, then, is can you build a user interface that can beat the iPhone (News - Alert)? I will tell you the bad news first. The answer is NO. Now I will tell you the good news. It’s already here. It’s called the Web.

 

Good Luck.