Pre-load to post-sales?
Andreas Constantinou of VisionMobile has an interesting theory that "Embedded software has been commoditising" and is being replaced with "post-sales monetisation" in the form of application stores such as those provided by Apple and Android.
The theory is that as (open source) operating systems reach a price tag of $0, the value of software produced by third parties that’s included in these operating systems also approaches $0.
There’s a lot of talk these days of zero licence cost. However, while open source operating systems might have an upfront cost of $0, the real cost may be significant. The cost of base porting a free OS onto new hardware is very significant. A lot of work goes into drivers and hardware adaptation layers to allow the OS to work with the given hardware. The ongoing support and bug fixing, firmware updates etc for each version on each set of hardware is also significant. I tend to think that the actual OS license cost is only really an issue when shipping a truly large number of phones. Otherwise, the realisation costs are more significant. If open source operating systems are the way forward, maybe the phone OEMs will be looking for innovative third party solutions to include in shipped phones to differentiate their offerings?
In terms of application stores and the success of the iPhone store, those who read my blog will know I also question if this is sustainable in the long term.
While I am not so brave to say Andreas is wrong - I don’t think it’s so black or white.
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