Move over Smartphone, a new sheriff is in town, and it's called the Superphone. At least thats the moniker being plastered about via GigaOm's founder Om Malik, who in an comprehensive overview is describing just what is going on in the smartphone/superphone market.
The comment which caught my eye is his closing comment about M&A activities where Om opined about a New York Times comment that:
If nothing else, the SuperPhones has created a demand for mobile apps, The New York Times says. Increased M&A of these mobile apps is up next, the Times says.
You see, as I wrote last month, the App Stores have become the equal to the super merchandisers, like WalMart, aggregating a diverse set of products. Right now the app stores take a slice of the pie (i.e. up to 30 percent I hear) from the companies that sell via the retail store front. In many ways this reminds me of the franchisee's contribution to the master franchiser who collects a piece of each sale, in exchange for the use of the name and other essential benefits. With the App Stores it includes an SDK, a set of API's, a common interface on devices and the Web, promotion to attract the users to the store, a payment mechanism which includes transaction procession and settlement, including how chargebacks and fraud are handled, etc.
By offering the "all in one place" operation the App Stores are both the destination and the commerce platform, thus enabling the growth, sale and adoption of so many new applications. This makes me wonder how soon before we see more activity from the largest writers and publishers of software, such as Oracle, Microsoft and Symantic, etc. who have very little, if anything really out there on the new Superphones/Smartphones to rave about.
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