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In this article we ‘ll review the present state of the market, the key App Store building blocks and where will the market be heading in two years.

And while technical openness was established 7 years ago, what was lacking all these years was commercial openness; the funnel between external developers and in-market handsets was so thin that very few software players could pass through. It took Symbian six years to reach 10,000 applications, while it took Apple only 6 months (see our earlier analysis). In the first year of operation, Apple’s App Store brought in 65,000+ apps, 100,000 registered developers, 1.5Billion application downloads and availability to consumers across 77 countries through 40 million iPhone and iPod Touch devices sold.

n this historical context, it is easy to see that App Stores are a developer-to-consumer merchandising channel; a go-to-market vehicle for allowing consumers to distribute and retail their applications directly to the end-consumers, while taking out the middlemen from distribution and retailing.

How to Non-Market .Apk Application on Google Android G1 Phone

Material wealth creation / destruction should surpass earlier computing cycles. The mobile Internet cycle, the 5th cycle in 50 years, is just starting. Winners in each cycle often create more market capitalization than in the last. New winners emerge, some incumbents survive – or thrive – while many past winners falter. The mobile Internet is ramping faster than desktop Internet did, and we believe more users may connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within 5 years. Five IP-based products / services are growing / converging and providing the underpinnings for dramatic growth in mobile Internet usage – 3G adoption + social networking + video + VoIP + impressive mobile devices. Apple + Facebook platforms serving to raise the bar for how users connect / communicate – their respective ramps in user and developer engagement may be unprecedented. Decade-plus Internet usage / monetization ramps for mobile Internet in Japan plus desktop Internet in developed markets provide roadmaps for global ramp and monetization. Massive mobile data growth is driving transitions for carriers and equipment providers. Emerging markets have material potential for mobile Internet user growth. Low penetration of fixed-line telephone and already vibrant mobile value-added services mean that for many EM users and SMEs, the Internet will be mobile.

This may pale in comparison to the number of applications available for the iPhone / iPod Touch (100,000), but the real battle for mobile OS dominion isn’t fought between Google and Apple, who are increasingly distancing themselves from more established players in terms of mobile Web usage and together are creating a whole new mobile advertising micro-economy.

In large stores, such as Apple’s App Store, it is easy for an application to get lost in the crowd. To avoid that problem, brands and agencies should develop strategies for increasing discoverability, such as using other mobile or non-mobile channels to build awareness of the application so that consumers will seek it out.

"Mobile will become the center of your digital channel relationships," Harteveldt said, pointing to 36% of smartphone users who access the Web daily from their devices. One in four use the device to research products they will buy either online or offline. The heavy lifting needed to become an effective multichannel marketer often involves eliminating silo operations; aggregating, analyzing and acting on consumer-profile data from across the company; and integrating online and offline consumer marketing, sales and service.

In a grab for young male consumers, Pizza Hut is using social media and mobile connected devices to partner with Electronic Arts Sports and other video game companies, fight night and films such as Terminator 4.

Forrester reports that online captured 29% of consumers' reported general merchandise retail spending in the second quarter of 2009. Half of all online Americans participate in social networks, a number that has increased 46% in the past year.

If the iPhone didn't finish off Windows Mobile in the smartphone market, the Motorola Droid may. Windows Mobile is losing the last vestiges of its mojo

In August, according to AdMob, Windows Mobile had only a 4 percent share of the mobile OS market worldwide, down from 7 percent in February

So the Droid may not be the iPhone killer but rather the Windows Mobile slayer. Microsoft, of course, will always have the unassailable PC franchise. But, wait, isn't Android coming to Netbooks next year? Maybe the real battle royal for Microsoft is yet to come.

Our presentation was titled “Mobile Application Stores – State Of Play” and highlights some of our findings on the six largest device manufacturer stores; Apple App Store, BlackBerry App World, Google Android Market, Nokia Ovi Store, Palm App Catalog and Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

Last week, Six Voices released Discover Rockford Michigan, the first of what it hopes will be a series of city-themed apps that provide maps, business directories, history, points of interest and other functions. The app was developed in conjunction with marketing and advertising firm Fluis Inc.

Store revival in retail will require a monumental shift in the retailer’s mindset for overhauling customer’s destination shopping experience, personalized marketing, and even personalized merchandise mix.

Android 1.5 31.0%

A start-up called Shopkick Inc., for example, has signed up Best Buy Co. and Macy's Inc. as launch partners for a new kind of app for iPhone and Android handsets that detects when shoppers are in or near stores and offers rewards targeted to them. Shopkick exploits the phones' location-sensing abilities—and cameras that customers can use to scan bar codes on items—to offer product information, coupons or other marketing offers when shoppers are in a convenient position to buy.

The number of people who use social networks from their smartphones skyrocketed 187%, to 18.3 million unique users, in July, compared with the same month a year earlier, says Nielsen. Social networking is among the fastest-growing activities on mobile devices, along with search and checking news, says Jon Stewart, Nielsen's research director for technology and search.

About 65 million of Facebook's 300 million members are mobile users. Eight months ago, it was 20 million. Of MySpace's estimated 125 million members worldwide, about 25 million use mobile devices. A year ago, it was 6 million.

For Apple (AAPL), the short answer is: The iPhone will continue to apply the Macintosh method—that is, controlling all or most of the user’s experience—with similar results: smaller market share, disproportionally larger profits than the separate hardware-software crowd. More on this later.