Are the telcos missing the point?

In a story from The Guardian, it looks like UK telcos (and that means others world wide are likely watching) are preparing to launch their own app store. They want in on the cash that seems to be flowing to Apple and Google. But something tells me that they are missing the point – much like they are still concerned about minutes of voice communication – the telcos are a utility, not content creators (at least on this part of the equation). This would be like the water company wanting into the soup business as well as the sippy cup cartel because well; they deliver water for use in those applications don’t they?

I know Apple isn’t going to let it’s store go down without a fight, and Google likely doesn’t care – it will still have it’s stock OS that the power user can install and get access to the Google Market. Google even allows other markets already, so what is the big deal? The deal might be for developers – if they can submit to one clearing house that then feeds the various App Stores, then the telcos might have hit on something. They are still a utility, they don’t really get in the way and in some way, they take a cut… but then what happens to all those free apps?

This should be an interesting development to watch over the next few months.


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