Talking about App Store is not a big news nowadays. Companies in CAD, PLM and other companies in enterprise market segment are talking a lot about app stores. However, no specific actions were made and identified. App store is definitely consumer market invention. Thinking more about the topic, is it really true for a long run?
I was reading the article “Amazon preps upmarket US Android app emporium“. The article made me think about the future of sales channels. Android is just a use case and weak development chain, since Google wasn’t very successful in development of their own app store. Amazon is a very sophisticated sales machine. By inviting developers on their App store, Amazon is creating an opportunity to become a sales channel. In the past, Microsoft was a very successful company focusing on developers, and it seems to me Jeff Bezos learned this lesson from Micorosft. CAD/PLM (and not only) software providers will be looking for alternative ways to sell their products to businesses. Amazon can be an interesting option to become a department store to market, sale and (what is very important too) to deliver applications for business too.
What is my conclusion? For the moment, enterprise/business application developers are actively using two paradigms – direct and indirect sales. However, in current market conditions, online sales channel with no religious dependencies to a specific platform (opposite to Google and Apple) can be an attractive option for application providers thinking about how to sell their products to a small business. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
