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Marketplace and Freewares
Gadgets - Mobile Platforms
Written by vicott   
Friday, 13 November 2009 00:43
Marketplace for mobile devices seem to be the "in" thing nowadays. Almost every mobile platform has their own app markets. From the user point of view, it is just so convenient to download the latest version of apps. Unfortunately, convenience comes at a cost. And even more unfortunately, developers have to bear the cost.

One can argue that app markets brings greater awareness to apps. This can be a good thing for shareware. Prices of shareware can be brought down since the sales volumes are likely to be greatly increased with the help of app markets. BUT what about freeware developers?

In my opinion, app markets can potentially be a nightmare to freeware developers for a number of reasons. And these reasons repel a freeware developer like me from releasing our apps to the app market.

Here are some reasons why app markets are unattractive to freeware developers:
  1. Developers have to pay a annual fee to release apps to the app markets. This means developers have to PAY in order to release FREEWARE? not very attractive, isn't it?
  2. Enthusiast developer like me do not spend heaps of time testing my apps. I don't have that luxury of time. Submission of apps to the app market do demand quite a bit of effort & time on app testing.
  3. Releasing freeware through app market implies our revenue from alternative sources like donation, etc, are greatly reduced. I emphasise on the word greatly since website traffic is greatly reduced as a result.
Do you have a solution for freeware developers like me? Converting my apps to commercial apps isn't exactly a solution, as that would mean I will have to spend much more time to "re-release" the apps. Besides, loyal users may not like the idea. Furthermore, some apps are so simple that I don't think I myself would spend money on them.
 

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