Growth in US software patent lawsuits means independent developers are turning away from it as a place to do business – as Indian software company sends warning to tech giants (updated)
British app developers are withdrawing products from US app stores because of fears over patent lawsuits. Photograph: Sergey Ponomarev/AP
App developers are withdrawing their products for sale from the US versions of Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market for fear of being sued by companies which own software patents – just as a Mumbai-based company has made a wide-ranging claim against Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo and a number of other companies over Twitter-style feeds, for which it claims it has applied for a patent.
Software patent owners in the US have latched onto potential revenue streams to be earned from independent developers by suing over perceived infringements of their intellectual property – which can be expensive for developers to defend even if they are successful.
Now developers in Europe are retreating from the US to avoid the expense and concern such “patent trolls” are causing.
Simon Maddox, a UK developer, has removed all his apps from US app stores on both iOS and Android for fear of being sued by Lodsys, a company which has already sued a number of iOS and Android developers which it says infringe its software patent.
Simon Maddox vents his opinion of Lodsys on TwitterShaun Austin, another app developer based in Cheltenham, said that “selling software in the US has already reached the non-viable tipping point”.
And Fraser Speirs, a Scottish developer who has written apps for the Mac and iOS, remarked that he was “starting to get seriously concerned about my future as a software developer due to these patent issues”.
The growth of patent lawsuits over apps raises serious issues for all the emerging smartphone platforms, because none of the principal companies involved – Apple, Google or Microsoft – can guarantee to protect developers from them. Even when the mobile OS developer has signed a patent licence – as Apple has with at least one company currently pursuing patent lawsuits – it is not clear that it has any legal standing to defend developers.
That has led developers to take evasive action. On Wednesday Maddoxtweeted that he was removing his apps from US app stores and putting 0.575% of total revenue into a spare bank account. “Screw you, Lodsys”, he commented.
He told the Guardian that it’s “far too dangerous to do business” in the US because of the risk of software patent lawsuits.
But for US-based developers, the problems remain. Craig Hockenberry of Iconfactory, developer of Twitterrific, remarked that “Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, they do and tweeted that “I became an independent developer to control my own destiny. I no longer do”. Iconfactory is among those being targeted by Lodsys, but earlier this week was granted a 30-day extension to reply to Lodsys’s claim.
Meawhile Kootol Software of Mumbai announced that it has sent a notice to Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, IBM, Research in Motion, LinkedIn, MySpace, Research in Motion and a number of other companies – including Iconfactory – claiming that they infringe US patent application 11/995,343 – “A Method and System for Communication, Advertising, Searching, Sharing and Dynamically Providing a Journal Feed” – which it said has also been applied for in India, Canada and Europe.
It says that patent it is seeking is an invention which “allows the user to publish and send messages using one way or two way messaging and by subscribing to posts of other users of a network. By indexing each message of each user the system provides real time search capabilities to users of the network in turn creating a unique form of communication.”
The company claims that it covers core messaging, publication and real-time searching, and that the named companies “may violate [our] intellectual property by using it for their website, networks, applications, services, platforms, operating systems and devices.”
Because the patent has not apparently been granted by the US Patent Office or any other patent office, the warning message may give the companies involved the chance to contact the relevant examiners and have the claim invalidated because “prior art” – implementations which predate the application – already exist, notes Florian Mueller, who has followed the development of the field.
Mobile Streams has announced that it has roped in Huawei for distributing its Appitalism app catalogue in selected regions. The former is a mobile content distributor looking to reach out to Huawei’s network across Asia and the Middle East.
There more than five million apps, songs, books, games and videos that can be accessed using a number of devices like smartphones, tablets, PCs as well as eBook readers, harbored in the Appitalism library. Under the umbrella of the deal, Huawei will have access, in addition to the distribution rights to the Appitalism library.
According to Simon Buckingham, CEO of Mobile Streams, they are optimistic about Huawei’s partnering them in ensuring that their app catalogue is in the hands of Asia’s top mobile operator, poised for widespread distribution in the Middle East – a region which was not previously part of Mobile Streams’ network.
Amazon.com will release a tablet product in the coming months running Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, a move that would bring Amazon into closer competition with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and its iPad.
The report, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, said Amazon will release the as-yet-unnamed product before October. The device will sport a 9-inch display but will not have a camera, and will be designed by an Asian manufacturer. Consumers will be able to use the tablet to access videos, music and digital books they purchase from Amazon, which will allow Amazon to better compete with Apple’s iTunes and iBooks offerings.
It’s unclear if the device will feature built-in wireless connections. Amazon is closely tied to the wireless industry; the company’s first Kindle ereader launched with built-in support for Sprint Nextel’s (NYSE:S) network. ABI Research recently reported that 25 percent of Apple’s iPads in the first quarter shipped with built-in cellular wireless connections.
An Amazon spokesman cold not immediately be reached for comment, the Journal said.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos strongly hinted in May that his company will release a tablet based on Android. In an interview with Consumer Reports, Bezos said to “stay tuned” on the company’s plans for a multipurpose tablet product. He suggested that such a device would supplement but not replace the popular Kindle.
Although there has been some speculation that Amazon might license webOS from Hewlett-Packard, Amazon has given multiple indications this year that it is backing Android. Amazon formally launched its Amazon Appstore for Android in late March, offering consumers a new channel to download applications optimized for Android smartphones and tablets. Shortly after the Appstore launched, Amazon unveiled a cloud-based music service called Cloud Drive that initially targeted Android devices.
Interestingly, the WSJ report also said Amazon will release two updated versions of its popular Kindle electronic reader in the third quarter. One will have a touchscreen display and the other will not, but will be an improved and cheaper version of the current Kindle.
AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) said on Wednesday it will supply mobile broadband service to a $139 Kindle 3G, which will come with AT&T-sponsored ads and screensavers. The regular Kindle 3G will remain $189.
App developer Bithack published an open letter criticising Amazon’s Appstore, warning that “if you are a small indie development team, or possibly even alone, don’t bother with Amazon Appstore.” According to the company, which developed a game called Apparatus, problems were encountered from submission until after the app was on sale, with Amazon being unresponsive to comments made. Bithack is now directing potential customers to Android Market, with the promise to refund customers who had already paid for the app from Amazon.
According to a post on its website, Bithack’s woes started at the submission stage, with Amazon criticised for having a “very slow review process.” It was then stated that the app was “completely hidden,” with the Amazon store not having a “just in” section, and the “new releases” category being “identical to the ‘top rated’ section.” Having spoken to Amazon to get the title promoted via a “free app of the day” listing and then an entry into the “hand-picked” popular games category, 180,000 downloads were made – but this number was achieved because Amazon does not filter-out unsuitable devices according to the Manifest file. This, in turn, led to poor reviews from customers who were unable to run the app adequately – if at all.
Unlike Android Market, Amazon Appstore does not provide an easy way to communicate with users, in order to address criticisms – “when a player from Android Market emails me about a bug on his phone, I can have a fix for him published in 30 minutes, ensuring a 4 or 5 star review and a happy customer,” the company said. In addition, there is no way to send dissatisfied customers refunds. In order to post comments or reviews, developers must first purchase the game – an option not open to international developers, due to the fact that Amazon Appstore is currently only available in the US.
Finally, Bithack said that Amazon – without consultation – cut the price of the game. Coupled with poor reviews (including one accusing the app of sending data to an ad server, which the company refuted), “just made things worse, from a psychological perspective.”
A number of observers have been optimistic about the potential of the Amazon Appstore, based largely on the company’s experience of merchandising. However, some observers have noted downsides to Amazon’s developer agreement, including the ability for Amazon to make a number of decisions related to app sales prices.
eBay has acquired mobile payments company Zong for $240 million in cash. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2011.
Zong has been one of the pioneers in the mobile payments space, adding a compelling new way for consumers to pay for items online. Simply put, it lets you pay for things, particularly virtual goods online, via direct billing to your mobile phone. Consumers simply enter their mobile phone numbers in the payments process.
When a user wants to purchase an item, he can enters his cell phone number on a site, the site sends a text message to the phone, the user confirms the transaction with a short reply, and all the charges show up on his phone bill. Zong powers this entire transaction. The company has partnered with over 250 carriers worldwide to offer the technology to mobile phone users.
eBay says that Zong will add ‘complementary technology and talent’ to its PayPal division, giving consumers more ways to pay for virtual goods and products online. Scott Thompson, president of PayPal, said this in a release: “Commerce is changing. With mobile phones, we walk around with a mall in our pockets. PayPal helps to make money work better for customers in this new commerce reality – no matter how they want to pay or what device they’re using…We believe that Zong will strengthen this value by helping us reach the more than 4 billion people who have mobile phones, giving them more choice and security when they pay.”
Zong, which was founded in 2008 by entrepreneur David Marcus, has raised a total of$27.5 million in funding. Matrix Partners’ Dana Stalder, who was the former CTO of PayPal, is on Zong’s board of directors.
One of the biggest markets for portable TVs Japan today got an interesting addition in the form of anAndroid 2.1 aka Éclair powered Panasonic SV-ME970.
This 7 inch display TV comes with 800×480 pixel resolution, 4GB of internal memory, an SDXC slot, a USB port, DLNA support, IEEE 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and 300mW×2ch speakers.
It is not all; this portable TV is also waterproof and will cost you USD 555. It will be available from July 30 in the market.
Kicking off what he promised would be the start of “launching season 2011” as well as the start of a new era of social networking, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an integration deal between Facebook and Skype during an event at company headquarters in Palo Alto. The service will allow Skype users to see Facebook updates within the Skype application, and Facebook users will be able to video chat with each other.
Social networking has evolved into an era in which the question of whether or not this concept would grow into a real movement has been answered, Zuckerberg said. He confirmed that Facebook now has 750 million users, but downplayed the number as less important now that Facebook has become nearly ubiquitous in much of the world: “You don’t measure the value of the Internet by how many people are using, it, you measure by the quality of the apps and how people are using it.”
The new video chat service is just part of a redesigned chat service that lets Facebook users only see the friends they exchange the most messages with in their chat window, as opposed to just anyone from their friends list who is online at a given time. Facebook also launched a multi-user chat service that lets you set up a chat conversation with three or more people as part of the new chat service.
But it’s the video chat that will get the most attention, given Google’s recent launch of Google+ and its Hangouts feature. Skype is the engine for this service, and it’s pretty simple: just click on the name of one of your Facebook friends and click a video icon to request a video chat. Group video chat isn’t available yet, and it’s also not available on mobile, but the video service is rolling out to Facebook users over the course of the day.
It’s an interesting gambit for Skype, given that Facebook has more users than Skype and the service would allow people to bypass Skype’s desktop application completely. Skype CEO Tony Bates pitched his company’s participation as a gateway to the Web for Skype, a company which is pretty much a standard voice-and-video-calling service on the desktop computer and has rolled out several popular mobile applications.
But users of Skype’s application will also be able to do a lot of the things they do within Facebook right from that application, such as read status updates, post new status updates and chat with friends. And Business Insider reported that the two companies are working on a way for Facebook users to call phone numbers, perhaps using Facebook’s budding payments system, Facebook Credits. That’s something Google (NSDQ: GOOG) also allows from within Gmail Chat, although Google’s service is free inside the U.S.
Of course, it’s also worth noting that Skype is folding into Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), a large investor in Facebook with close ties to the social networking service. Zuckerberg said that Facebook and Skype were working on the integration project anyway when the Microsoft-Skype deal started to take shape and pushed ahead once they both realized that Microsoft—perhaps Facebook’s biggest friend in the tech industry—wouldn’t stand in the way of anything.
In May, a pair of reports painted a troublesome portrait of the app economy on Google’s Android Market. First, mobile analytics firm Distimo found that the vast majority of paid applications were downloaded less than 100 times, and a few days later, mobile search firm Chomp reported that 97% of all Android downloads on its service were free apps. For developers, the takeaway was that if you want to generate revenue for your mobile application, you have to think outside the “paid app” box.
However, that’s not always the case. Although it may be a rare example, SPB Software has managed to have a revenue-generating hit on the Android Market with its SPB Shell 3D application, which earned the company $750,000 within its first three weeks of availability.
How could SPB do so well, when so many others are struggling. The answer is deceptively simple.Make an amazing app that people want, price it high and lock it down.
What’s SPB Shell 3D?
For those who don’t know, SPB Shell 3D is what’s known as a homescreen replacement application. This type of customization is hugely popular among Android users who relish the ability to truly personalize their phones in ways their iPhone-toting counterparts cannot. A number of homescreen replacement apps are available on the Market today, including popular programs like LauncherPro,ADWLauncher EX, ADW.Launcher, GO Launcher EX, Regina 3D Launcher, Zeam Launcher and others. Most are offered as free products with premium upgrades available on the side.
SPB Shell 3D went a different route: price the whole program high, and include everything.
So what makes SPB Shell 3D stand out? Well, did I mention it’s awesome? This program offers a 3D homescreen and built-in 3D widgets, smart folders, animated panels and more. It’s fast and frankly, it’s just great eye candy.
Gadget reviewers, who had been waiting for the app’s arrival for a year, tended to agree. SPB Shell 3D received rave reviews - Engadget said it was buttery smooth, AndroidPolice dubbed it “impressive,” and ZDNet said it was “as useful as it is gorgeous.”
It should be noted though, that the app doesn’t run as well on some devices as it does on others. It struggled a little on my Nexus S, but ran well on my HTC Sensation. That may be due to the software’s more recent optimizations for Qualcomm chipsets, but it could also simply be a case where the app just works better on more modern and powerful devices.
Case Study: 50,000 Copies at $750K in 3 Weeks
Of course, the app’s high price turns many potential users away, and you can read the complaints in the user reviews from those who expected more for their money. But for mobile developers, SPB Shell 3D is a case study worth noticing.
Three weeks into its launch, the company sold 50,000 copies of the program, to the tune of $750,000. The app is priced higher than what users typically expect on Android: $14.95. Today, SPB Shell 3D has reached 70,000 downloads.
A key component to the app’s success is the security model it uses. With proprietary technology, the app is locked down to prevent piracy. That’s why the app is listed in Google’s Android Market, but not Amazon’s. The Amazon Appstore for Android doesn’t offer strong enough security, a company spokesperson says.
In addition, the company has a business model that doesn’t force it to rely on paid downloads alone. SPB Software also licenses its technology as a white label product. For example, in Japan, it worked with Fujitsu to create the interface for NTT Docomo’s Regza Phone T-01C. What that means is even if the downloads hit a plateau, the app’s makers don’t necessarily have to lower the price to continue to grow the business – they can just focus on their partnerships.
While the app’s makers may eventually have to cut the price down if they want to grow their B2C install base, there aren’t plans to do so at this time. As an Android user, you may or may not care for the app or its price, but as an Android developer, you can’t help but be a little inspired. Some apps do sell on Android, even when priced outrageously high.
Alibaba Group, the Chinese Internet firm best known for its online commerce initiatives, is reportedly developing its own smartphone operating system for release in the third quarter of 2011. Citing sources close to the project, The Wall Street Journal reports the cloud-based Alibaba mobile OS will enable consumers to access applications stored on remote servers, going head on with the app download model popularized by Apple’s and Google’s Android platform.
The Wall Street Journal report speculates Alibaba will leverage the mobile operating system to promote its affiliated services, which include the Alipay online payment platform and web portal China Yahoo. Additional details on the Alibaba OS are scarce, and it is unknown which handset makers plan to build devices powered by the software. Although Alibaba will initially target the Chinese market, a source said there is “nothing that prevents it from being used elsewhere eventually.”
Symbian is presently the 500-pound gorilla of the Chinese smartphone segment, controlling 59.8 percent of the market in the first quarter according to Beijing research firm Analysys International. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile is next at 11.8 percent, with Android at 11.1 percent and iPhone at 6.1 percent. Chinese search firm Baidu has hinted it may develop its own mobile OS as well.
[Are cross-platform tools a better solution than HTML5 to the challenges of platform fragmentation? Guest author Jonas Lind reviews the landscape of cross-platform tools and argues that such tools may become as important as the native platforms themselves.]
The Android vs. iOS vs. Windows Phone platform battle has been the talk of the industry for the last year. But the market share battle between handset platforms might not be as critical for the industry as many believe.
A popular view in the industry is that the market is inevitably moving towards an Apple-Google duopoly. Apple’s app store has more than 400,000 apps. Android is growing quickly from a base of more than 250,000 apps and is predicted to catch up with Apple later this year. Nearly 80 percent of all apps in app stores are controlled by these two market giants according to Distimo. Figures for Q1 2011 from Gartner show that the market share in the smartphone market for iOS and Android combined is 53 percent and rising.
But the duopoly may be challenged by the mobile web and cross-platform tools. HTML5 empowers all other platforms to offer apps through the browser. VisionMobile’s recent Developer Economics report shows that the mobile web (of which HTML5 is a subset) is already the third most popular platform in terms of developer mindshare after Android and iOS.
At the same time, HTML5 is overhyped and the belief that HTML5 will replace almost all native apps is in need of a reality check. Native apps will still offer richer functionality, better performance, and higher security compared to HTML5-based apps. A study by quirksmode.org has shown that every mobile WebKit implementation is slightly different, which could cause a problem for HTML5-based apps. In a recent whitepaper, Netbiscuits measured smartphone support for 18 features in HTML5 and showed that leading smartphones only offer partial (or no) support for a significant number of these features. Implementation is also fragmented. What works on iPhone will probably not work on RIM or Samsung handsets and vice versa. Or to quote Forrester’s take on the HTML5 vs. native debate: “The ‘Apps vs. Internet’ Debate Will Continue…to be irrelevant.”, “it’s not a question of ‘either/or’ when it comes to a choice between apps vs. the mobile Web, but both.”
The Landscape Of Cross-Platform Development Tools
The new types of cross-platform tools are more interesting than plain HTML5 because they can deliver higher performance and functionality than browser based HTML5. These tools produce apps as output and fall roughly into two categories:
1) Web apps/hybrid apps. These apps exploit the web engine (“web browser”) and are typically written in HTML/CSS/JavaScript.
2) Native apps. These apps are compiled into machine code and often written in C++ or similar languages.
Cross-platform tools are a nascent market with a flurry of startup activity over the last few years. The following diagram illustrates different trade-offs between complexity and performance in the cross-platform tools market.
Traditional websites: In the lower left corner is the traditional website, limited in performance but providing access to all platforms with no added complexity. Plain HTML5 could be included here once all browsers support the standard.
Web apps/hybrid apps: Adjacent in the diagram are HTML5 web apps that can be downloaded to the browser’s cache and run offline. They will offer better performance and only slightly higher complexity. One step up in the diagram is a market segment of cross-platform tools running simulated native. These tools deliver better performance but the complexity is also higher if the tool has to support multiple platforms. Here we find tools that produce web apps built on HTML5/CCS3 and JavaScript, with some added native elements, typically inside a native wrapper. These cross-platform tools often add native extensions that provide access to some low level native functionality. An example of a player in this market segment is PhoneGap, which is often used in tandem with the Sencha Touch framework. Other tools that run on top of PhoneGap are WorkLight and appMobi.
A closely related market segment is hybrid tools, where the HTML5/JavaScript input is translated into actual native source code. An example of a hybrid tool vendor is Appcelerator’sTitanium.
Other types of solutions which fall under the main heading of web/hybrid apps are based on Java, Lua, ActionScript or less common languages. The diagram shows how the heavily-fragmented Java ME offers inferior performance in spite of high complexity. The cross-platform tools Corona SDK and DragonRAD are based on Lua. Rhodes is based on HTML/Ruby while OpenPlug uses ActionScript (Flash) as source language. Kony uses drag-n-drop for building enterprise web apps. There is no reliable information about the performance/complexity trade-off for most of these solutions, so their exact position in the diagram above should be viewed as illustrative. In general, tools in which the resulting code is compiled or recompiled to native ARM machine code will have a higher performance.
Native apps: The second main category is native apps. In cross-platform tools for native apps, developers often work with a codebase in C/C++ or C# which is then semi-automatically ported to the target platform and device. Performance is significantly higher with native code, but so is the complexity. Players in this sector include Airplay, Qt and MoSync. The Airplay SDK (now Marmalade) originates in 3D gaming but can also be used as a general C++ cross-platform tool. Qt is a cross-platform UI framework that also can be used for native C++ porting. Qt primarily supports Nokia’s legacy platforms. MoSync is a cross-platform tool for general purpose C++ development, integrated with the Eclipse IDE and also available under an open source (GPL) license.
Cross-Platform Beyond Java – Native Extensions
The traditional approach to cross-platform development has been a lowest common denominator one – much like that taken by Java, Flash Lite and mobile HTML. This approach sacrifices performance, UI pizzazz and access to specific device features.
A workaround is to add native extensions. These can provide additional SDK/NDK libraries for the IDE and also give access to low level hardware functionality. Access to low-level hardware functionality can be managed by a device database that controls which conditional code will be executed on a given device.
Several of the cross-platform vendors have built such device databases with various levels of detail. A device database contains information on screen size, input modality and exact OS version, extending to detailed hardware configurations and known bugs with workarounds.
Using native extensions, it is possible to overcome the inherent limitations that plagued Java. Instead of “write once, run everywhere”, developers can spend 90 percent of their time developing a common codebase and 10 percent adding native tweaks and extensions for each platform and device. For software purists, the 90/10 solution might not seem very elegant, but it is a way forward that can handle the incredible complexity with thousands of devices running more than five OS platforms. In this way, app developers can manage one codebase and port it to target devices without losing functionality. In principle, using a (C++) cross-platform engine with extensions should be able to offer similar functionality with minimal performance penalty as compared to direct development for the target device. There will be significant economies of scale when the common codebase is tweaked for 100s of devices.
The Disruptive Potential Of Cross-Platform
There are few signs that platform fragmentation will disappear. It’s not just Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7, which are backed by corporate giants with deep pockets, but also smaller players like QNX (RIM), WebOS (HP), MeeGo (Intel, China Mobile) and Bada (Samsung). Add to that legacy platforms, which will be around for at least a few years: Windows Mobile, Blackberry OS, Symbian, BREW, Java ME and Flash. If we also include the main desktop platforms (Windows, Mac OS, Ubuntu), gaming consoles, set-top boxes, cars, and other gadgets, the number of platforms becomes unmanageable.
App developers whose clients need to reach the entire market, face the formidable task of supporting all platforms and devices. If they can use a cross-platform engine the productivity gains will be dramatic compared to paying for separate in-house dev teams for each platform.
Early adopters of cross-platform will most likely be large consumer businesses who need to target the mass market such as media companies, games houses, entertainment companies, banks, and any brand developing B2C apps. Similarly, government agencies are often required to provide non-discriminatory access to their services and cross-platform tools will enable them to do just that. Another group of early adopters of cross-platform tools is CIOs of larger corporations. They face increasing demand from senior staff who want to use their favorite smartphone for secure access of internal company data. Once these early adopters have driven down the prices and sorted out stability issues we should expect to see a fast uptake of cross-platform tools in the mainstream app development market.
Assuming more developers move to cross-platform tools, the power distribution in the mobile sector will be challenged. The difference in the number of available apps between dominant and up-n-coming platforms will be reduced. This will allow smaller platforms to compete on a level playing field.
Web apps and HTML5 should make the largest dent in the market power of traditional platforms. But the final nail in the coffin will come when C++ cross-platform engines can offer almost the same performance and functionality as coding directly on the target platform. This is possible if the cross-platform engines can fully integrate native platform and device extensions. In that case, developers of native apps might reconsider Android, iOS and WP7 and choose to code to a cross-platform IDE, not to the platform. In this scenario, the cross-platform IDEs would become players of equal or even greater importance than the native platforms. At the very least, today’s OS platform wars will move to a totally different level.
Came across this very informative piece about cross OS development from Jonas Lind : [Jonas Lind has been working in the TMT sector since the late 1990s. Among other things, he has worked as an industry analyst for TeliaSonera HQ, with trend forecasting and scenarios in a project commissioned by Ericsson Research, as a strategy consultant during the dot com bubble and with femtocell concept development. He runs the blog Mobileforsight and is currently a strategy analyst at the seed stage VC fund STING Capital.]
Simon Maddox vents his opinion of Lodsys on TwitterShaun Austin, another app developer based in Cheltenham, said that “selling software in the US has already reached the non-viable tipping point”.
Mobile Streams has announced that it has roped in Huawei for distributing its Appitalism app catalogue in selected regions. The former is a mobile content distributor looking to reach out to Huawei’s network across Asia and the Middle East.
Amazon.com will release a tablet product in the coming months running Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, a move that would bring Amazon into closer competition with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and its iPad.
App developer Bithack published an open letter criticising Amazon’s Appstore, warning that “if you are a small indie development team, or possibly even alone, don’t bother with Amazon Appstore.” According to the company, which developed a game called Apparatus, problems were encountered from submission until after the app was on sale, with Amazon being unresponsive to comments made. Bithack is now directing potential customers to Android Market, with the promise to refund customers who had already paid for the app from Amazon.
eBay has acquired mobile payments company Zong for $240 million in cash. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2011.
Zong, which was founded in 2008 by entrepreneur David Marcus, has raised a total of$27.5 million in funding. Matrix Partners’ Dana Stalder, who was the former CTO of PayPal, is on Zong’s board of directors.
In May, a pair of reports painted a troublesome portrait of the app economy on Google’s Android Market. First, mobile analytics firm Distimo found that the vast majority of paid applications were downloaded less than 100 times, and a few days later, mobile search firm Chomp reported that 97% of all Android downloads on its service were free apps. For developers, the takeaway was that if you want to generate revenue for your mobile application, you have to think outside the “paid app” box.
Alibaba Group, the Chinese Internet firm best known for its online commerce initiatives, is reportedly developing its own smartphone operating system for release in the third quarter of 2011. Citing sources close to the project, The Wall Street Journal reports the cloud-based Alibaba mobile OS will enable consumers to access applications stored on remote servers, going head on with the app download model popularized by Apple’s and Google’s Android platform.
