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Concept to Completion

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Mobile Applications is the futureApplication Store is the new Mantra

Recently the Apple's app store crossed 1 billion application downloads. In the year 2008 alone, 139 million smartphone units were sold worldwide, up 13.9% compared to 2007. The smart phone unit sales are expected to exceedlaptops by year 2014.Following Apple app store's unprecedented success other handset manufactures and device vendors are joining thebandwagon by announcing their own application stores. For example Nokia recently launched the Ovi store.Blackberry has its own App World and Google's Android has Android market.Needless to say, there is a huge opportunity for small and large companies, content providers, small businesses andindividuals to convert their ideas into mobile applications and instantly reach global audience and customer base.

Background

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Variables

PlatformsUsersDevicesNetworks

It is hard to build Mobile Applications

Although there are a lot of applications in the market-place, the industry has not been able to create a "killer app" (likefor example SMS) yet. The complexity in developing mobile applications arises because of the following variables:

Building Mobile Applications

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Devices (Hardware) - There are hundreds of mobile handsets available today fromvarious manufacturers. Each handset model or a family of models has its set of uniquefeatures and capabilities.

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Platforms (Software) - There exists a variety of software platforms for all the differentmobile handsets. For example J2ME, Symbian, iPhone, Android, Brew, Palm etc... Eachplatform has its own set of development tools, development languages, developmentenvironments etc..., which makes it hard for developers to create a "universal"application.

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Networks (Service Providers) - Each service provider has its own policy with regards todeployment of mobile applications and thus the development team cannot guaranteeseamless deployment across all networks.

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Users (Cultural, Social and Economic Diversity) - Each set of users in differentgeographies bring their own unique flavors to their expectations from mobileapplications.

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