DISQUS

Khürt · 2 months ago

Please elaborate on how "the Apple App Store must be frightened." Tech geeks tend to forget that their numbers are small and successful products like the iPhone are not driven by the what a bunch of geeks do. A product or service will not succeed unless the broader audience understands it, wants it and can use it.

http://thenextweb.com/appetite/2009/10/26/newsf...

WIB · 2 months ago

@Khürt it's pretty obvious : android market shares are growing fast due to the portage on more and more phones (http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?m...). Whereas AppStore delivers applications for iPhone and iPod touch, just imagine if the "Wave marketplace could stock in-Wave applications, along with desktop applications, browser extensions and a world of devices, from laptops, phones, tablets and more with built in Wave support" (http://thenextweb.com/appetite/2009/10/27/googl...). By being open source, it will surely attract a lot more developers.

It is far possible Android will become a major actor so yes, Apple AppStore needs to not ignore that.

I'm not worried about the audience that does not understand how to use Google Wave, I'm sure they will be forced to, someday.

stevegio · 2 months ago

"By being open source, it will surely attract a lot more developers."

That would explain all the applications and games I can get down at Best Buy for my Ubuntu system.
But seriously,I've been around the block a bit and everyone's assumption that high quality developers will flock to a platform is false. Application developers flock to a platform because they can make money. This is more about the ecosystem around the platform (marketing, market share, ease of development, low barriers to entry) not whether the platform source code is available. Windows (saints preserve us) has been a monster platform for commercial software developers and it is completely closed source.
I don't doubt that an app store for Wave is an interesting thing especially with some tie in to Android. I'm not sure how both platforms tie together but you never know.
Oh BTW, Wave is not open source.

WIB · 1 month ago

The API is. It is what matters for developpers.

Khürt · 1 month ago

But does your non-geek next door neighbour care about developers? @stevegio's point is still valid. Windows and OS X are both closed source (and so is the iPhone, Blackberry etc) but I can go anywhere on the web and buy high quality software for both platforms. Where's the high quality software store for Linux/FOSS? Developers will go where the money is.

Khürt · 1 month ago

You make these predictions as though you have fact to back it up.

"By being open source, it will surely attract a lot more developers"

Show how this will lead to market dominance? What example from the past can you provide to support this argument?

"I'm not worried about the audience that does not understand how to use Google Wave, I'm sure they will be forced to, someday."

Really?!!! So who cares what customers want, let's just ram our technology down their throats and tell them to like it? I sure hope you don't run any businesses.