According to a report General Assembly released in September, the demand for mobile developers of all types has increased more than 150 percent in the past five years.
The No. 1 thing they [Android developers] hear from their developer network is, I need more developers!
The Android operating system is core to Google's larger strategy. Helping to train developers to write apps for it will increase the supply of complements to the entire platform. In the longer term, this effort is likely to make the platform that much more valuable.
The more complementary apps exist for Android the lower the elasticity for Google's operating system. According to statista.com, as of July 2015, Android users had a whopping 1.6 million aps available, compared to 1.5 million apps for Apple's customers. How this battle plays out in the long run is unclear. (1). A key aspect of Apple's strategy is maintaining the quality of available apps by thoroughly vetting developers. While Apple does garner revenue from selling apps, its mostly in the hardware business. The apps are all complementary products that foster the user experience for Apple's premium audience.
ReplyDeleteWhile Google Play has greater downloads, Apple still leads in revenue. Google's growth has come more in emerging markets relative to Apple. Will future market growth be greater in emerging markets because of lower costs and therefore favor Google. A larger audience would lead developers to release Android versions of their new apps first. Getting apps after they're available for Android would be a significant blow to Apple's customer base.
Conversely, developing for Android has been more difficult because of the greater variety of devices. This may make it easier and simpler to develop new apps for iOS first.
The tech wars shall continue!
1) Ranger, Steve. iOS Versus Android. Apple Ap Store versus Google Play: Here Comes The Next Battle in the App Wars. ZDNet.com, January 16, 2015
Google has been going really great and I believe it’s all down to the quality that’s visible. I do Forex trading and here also I prefer working with quality company like OctaFX, so that automatically makes my work easier and that’s something we need to know that ultimately, it’s all quality that last, it won’t matter what comes but if there is quality in the company then not only it will last, but it will grow and that too pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteAs suggested within the commentary already, Android applications are continually becoming better in quality and are highly important to Google’s ultimate success. About 5-6 years ago, I bought my first android-based operating system and I was not as happy with the product due to its complexity. In my opinion, it was not as user friendly; however, it is changing as new developers continue to execute more friendly code to complement the users needs on the open source application store unlike that of competitor Apple. With programs such as this boot camp, I imagine we will continue to see improvement.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the increasing resources being poured into this area will ultimately benefit eager computer scientists and programmers in such a unique niche in the market. I imagine that qualified programmers will earn great benefits and great salaries as a consequence as well.
The point of this boot camp is actually not to improve Android adoption which is actually greater than IOS or to increase Android app usage, the Google Play store actually has more downloads than the Apple store. Despite the greater number of Android users and greater number of downloads from its app store, Google lags behind Apple in app revenue and more developers are looking towards IOS as a means to increase their income. The boot camp ensures that Android maintains skilled programmers knowledgeable in the Android SDK and actually provides these developers with a competitive advantage as the size of the Android developer pool shrinks.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to the approach Microsoft made with its MS-DOS product in the 1980s, Google has made a strategic decision to focus on leveraging platform instead of a product for its strategic advantage in the mobile computing space.
ReplyDeleteFor the Android platform, Google is providing this platform free of charge to anyone who wants to put this operating system on its device. It is also providing an open source market that is encouraging as many developers as possible to create apps on this platform. That is because platform strategies need complimentary innovations or related products in order for it to reach its greatest potential (Froeb et al, 2014).
For Google, it is the mobile marketplace that it wants to see rapidly grow so it can make money from its mobile services. In fact, Google is looking for the mobile marketplace to be the number one source to access its services (Kim, 2013). Google has over 20 major mobile products that it uses to make money that all compliment apps developed in Android. These include: Google Adwords, Google Maps, and Google Wallet (Kim, 2013).
For Google’s mobile strategy to work, it needs to continue to the marketplace to grow with more products and more devices that can leverage its mobile platform and ultimately access its mobile services.
References:
Froeb et al (2014). Managerial Economics: A Problem Solving Approach. Australia: Cengage Learning.
Kim, Larry. "Google for Mobile: How Google Makes Money from Mobile." Google's Mobile Apps, Software, and Devices. Wordstream, 6 Mar. 2013. Web. 25 Mar. 2016.