This is the main conclusion of the second day of the ZF Mobilio’13 conference. These products have to come as an extension of the existing business, and one solution to promote them is a partnership with telecom operators.
“We have already received a lot of proposals for apps. Some of them are interesting, some not. There are many apps and the good ones are very few and cost. Not everyone can afford the time and money to make something serious. Telecom operators are a great channel for developers of apps that are really worth it,” said Bogdan Tibrin, VAS, Data & Handset Development Manager at Cosmote Romania, present on Tuesday at ZF Mobilio’13, an event organized by Ziarul Financiar in partnership with SIVECO, Bitdefender, TotalSoft, Microsoft, MasterCard and CertSign.
So now, according to specialists, apps and telecom operators should work as elements of an ecosystem, where apps communicate among themselves and operators offer users added value to the services and phones they include in their offers. Apps would answer a user need or come as extensions of existing businesses, and improve them.
“A big part of these apps should come as an extension of a business. Very few developers create apps for business. Apps which start without a clear plan, relying on a very large number of users, have increasingly low chances to succeed,” explains Diana Olaru, CEO Voucherry Romania, who adds that the shots are similar to those of winning the lottery.
“The business to business area can grow. You make corporate app stores, where employees’ phones have access to business app stores. Another area with potential is that of TV apps. In the future, unless you have a presence on mobile devices, you won’t exist, with very few exceptions,” says Andrei Pitis, Angel Investor in mobile apps Clever Taxi and I-Rewind.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)