Nowadays Technological development occurs in very dynamic rates to help or to make easy our various activities. The most recent is the development of mobile application. Previous mobile were used only for such activities as are texts and calls, but now higher models of mobile phones are also good as a small PC in your pocket.
As the number of people using mobile devices are growing extremely each year, several companies enter the market of mobile application development. This has led to the proliferation of mobile operating systems. This increase in the level of competition would be beneficial for consumers in many other industries. However, in the mobile development industry application it has led to fragmentation of the industry.
Fragmentation
Fragmentation is a phenomenon commonly known in the information technology and information technology related industries. Fragmentation occurs when there are several platforms or standards in the industry. This prevents developers access to the full range of market and forces them to concentrate solely on most popular platforms. Only developers with an uncommon wealth of resources are capable of addressing the complete market. Even large companies have certified the adverse effects of the fragmentation of the market for mobile applications.
In February 2010, the BBC announced its intention to launch an application mobile news. In this announcement, they were critical of fragmentation in the market of mobile applications saying it prevented them to reach all consumers while also and that until a solution is the profitability of the mobile application industry will suffer.
Fragmentation prevents small developers to enter the market for a number of reasons. First, it increases costs. In a fragmented market, developers have to comply with a myriad of different standards and procedures to take their application on the market. This raises the involved in the development of an application of time and money and acts as a barrier for smaller or newer developers. It is his turn, prejudicial to consumers; it reduces the choices on the market.
Developers should also incur considerable costs to learn how to develop for a particular platform. In a fragmented market, it is often difficult to predict what platforms will become dominant and have a larger installation base. If developers choose a platform that is progressively later or becomes a niche platform, they will have wasted precious time and money.
The fragmentation of the market also prevents developers of highly technical applications or targeted to enter the market and a profit. Highly technical applications are difficult to port on all platforms and or often targeted to a specific niche audience. If the public is divided across a number of devices, it is unlikely that such applications will be beneficial to the market.
The market of mobile devices
The fragmentation of the market of mobile devices is a relatively new phenomenon. The beginning of the 2000s, there is very little mainstream, Palm, Windows Mobile and Blackberry mobile device operating systems. Less than a decade later there are more than three times the figures with new platforms emerging as Android, iPhone and more variation of Palm, Symbian, and Windows platforms.
Without a completely dominant system in a domain, it is more difficult for developers to reach their target markets. Each mobile platform also tends to have its own digital distribution channel. Distribution through different channels also adds the costs incurred by the developers that they must comply with the rules of each distribution channel and pay a percentage of their income to each store.
Fragmentation stems have both operating systems. The best example of this date is an alliance of industry, the wholesale Applications community. This alliance consists of 24 mobile companies, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson and Orange. The objective of this alliance is to create a mobile distribution channel that distributes applications for all devices regardless of the mobile platform. They aim to create this common standard for mobile applications over the next 12 months.
A common standard for mobile applications is the best way to combat fragmentation in the long term. However, some developers have begun to develop mobile web applications instead of native mobile applications. Although web applications do not have the functionality of native applications, any device with a recent internet browser can access it. Developing mobile Web applications became more viable in recent years, as mobile browsers have improved and as JavaScript scripting languages support.
However, web application development is not ideal for many developers, especially those who develop complex applications. With the formation of the wholesale Applications community and collaboration of many major companies on the market of mobile development, it seems that a concerted effort is made to address the fragmentation of the industry. As long as the interests of all companies in the wholesale Applications community will continue to converge, it is likely that the negative impact of fragmentation on the developers and consumers is greatly reduced.
