Is freemium the answer to making apps pay?

Ask Any Mobile developer: getting users to pay for smartphone apps is not easy - and it's only going to get harder, According To Screen Digest analyst IHS. Developers need to turn Their attention to making money from In-App Purchases, Which it said are on the rise.

The analyst said the freemium business model, where 'apps are free at the point of charge to download But fee for new content, will soon be the dominant smartphone apps business model.

IHS Screen Digest reckons In-App Purchases will rise to account for well over half (64 per cent) of total revenue in 2015 app market, up from just over a third (39 per cent) last year, while revenue from In-App Purchases will swell to $ 5.6bn in 2015, up from $ 970m in 2011. The data comes from STI Mobile Media Intelligence Service.

"In 2012, it Will Become increasingly apologetic for app stores and developers to justify charging an upfront fee for Their products When faced with competition from a plethora of free content. Instead, the apps industry embrace the freemium FULLY Must model and monetise content-through in -App Purchases. "

By the end of the third quarter of 2011, free-to-download apps Already close to half Represented (45 per cent) of the top-grossing U.S. iPhone apps, According To IHS Screen Digest, as well as Almost a third (31 per cent) of the highest-earning U.S. Android Market apps. The analyst Calculates That a Majority substantial businesses (68 per cent) of the top-grossing U.S. Some apps featured form of additional content or functionality unlocked by an in-app purchase.

While games Have pioneered the in-app payment model - with virtual currencies Such as poker chips accounting for the largest proportion (63 per cent) of In-App Purchases on the U.S. iPhone App Store at the end of the third quarter of 2011 - the analyst said the approach has Been So Successful That other types of companies building apps need to Get Involved to "mobile app to Maximise Their Revenues."

The next most popular in-app purchase virtual currency after WAS for specific in-game function or features, accounting for around a fifth (22 per cent) of the most popular U.S. in-app sales. Other popular buys include time-limited navigation services, dating and social network access premium, plus specific functions or features for photo and video apps.

Just two per cent of the top U.S. In-App Purchases Were half for additional content or TV Such As video content. Time-limited subscriptions or In-App Purchases to newspaper / magazine content WAS more Successful - in the UK Such in-app buys half Accounted for five per cent of the top iPhone In-App Purchases During The third quarter of last year.

In related news app, professional services firm Deloitte Predicts That as the overall supply of apps Continues to grow the number of paid downloads - app downloads and indeed generally - is likely to shrink. But writing in STI Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions 2012 report, the company says this does not mean the app is Fundamentally flawed model - but Rather Reflects the "winner-takes-all" nature of much online content.

As competition Between Increasing numbers of apps intensifies, countries with More mature app Ecosystems are expected to see production and marketing for apps Costs escalate. Deloitte Predicts events produced the apps Most Expensive This Year Could cost millions of dollars.

It's not just getting your app that's going Noticed to get harder, Either - developing apps is going to become increasingly complex as the app and device Becomes more diverse landscape, Predicts Deloitte.

"In the future, the overall market is likely be apps characterised by the co-existence of multiple platforms, countries, languages, genres, manufactures, file sizes and model-specific events application stores. To reach more than 90 per cent of all app users, a developer may need to create versions for five Different operating systems (plus HTML5), five major languages, three Different processor speeds, and four Different screen sizes. In other words 360 variants of a single app may be needed to be created in order to FULLY cover the overall market, "the report said.

Also Deloitte Predicts the feature and capability gap Between top of the range smartphones and more budget $ 100 or less devices will widen This Year - adding to the number of versions of apps developers need to make.

"In 2012, the fastest smartphones will likely offer quad-core processors 1.5-2.5GHz while the growing numbers of $ 100 smartphones is likely to processors with speeds Have 200MHz and 600MHz Between," it said.

Computer forensics - Why you're not so hard to track down

I've lost count of how many TV shows centre on the forensics of crime but there seems to be an awful lot. Even during my youth, movies and TV programmes would feature fingerprinting and other techniques. Today DNA, bio samples, hair and clothing fibres often figure in the path to the truth.

It seems that people like a detective story, especially if it entails clever scientists weeding out the dark facts of a case. But, dare I say it, this analogue world has become somewhat tedious because of the limited number of scenarios.

However, there is a parallel in the digital world that involves a much wider and faster growing choice.

Today most computer crime goes unchallenged, or even unnoticed, as the web continues to expand. But the forces of good are waking up, taking notice, and increasingly having to take action. As a result digital forensics is on teh up and is every bit as challenging as its analogue forebear.

Consider for a moment all the variables that identify you and your machine should you decide to join the dark side. Sure, you can operate in some secret mode and disguise your machine, your identity, and your location, but there is still a lot of data that relates only to you.

So, it is not a matter of looking out for a single big identifier, more a large combination of seemingly insignificant properties – in effect, a multi-dimensional fingerprint.

Consider what a digital fingerprint might look like - and what follows is not a comprehensive list. It is just a taster of what we could look for if we were on the trail of some bad guy:

• Choice of font – style size
• Page formatting
• Span and use of vocabulary
• Word, phrase, slang, colloquialism, terminology use
• Sentence and paragraph structure
• Spelling and grammatical errors
• Flesch-Kincaid reading index
• Choice of software
• Language settings
• Connection type
• Carrier, ISP, networks
• Operational ports
• Update settings
• Routing
• Point, or apparent point of origin

I’m sure you get the idea in terms of the uniqueness of this data as a combinatorial identifier. It is very difficult indeed to break our regular patterns of operation and to randomise everything completely.

And even if we do attempt to do that, guess what? It involves even more patterns that just add another line to the list.

On an even more positive note: the world has far more good neurons than bad - by a long, long way.

The Core Principles of Technology Business Management 3º part

Continuous Improvement and Planning

IT must continuously identify opportunities for operational optimization. This includes leveraging third party services and cloud services, ongoing labor management and service innovation, consolidation and retirement. After a decision, IT must track the cost and performance results to ensure projected ROI is achieved.

IT must become more agile by automating and continuously managing the budget, forecast and plan of IT. This allows for rapid response to changes in company strategy or economic climate. It also cements the alignment of IT with the business on an ongoing basis.

The Core Principles of Technology Business Management 2º part

Manage Performance, Make Trade-Offs

IT leadership must marry the TCO of IT products with deep utilization and quality of Service information. This is the best practice of Performance Management from supply chains.  This helps IT drive up the return on existing assets and drive down unit rates to business units. It also lays the foundation for a robust dialogue with the business units on cost and quality of IT services that drives trade-offs based on business priorities.

IT must benchmark the TCO of their IT products and services rigorously against industry peers, similar size organizations and internally between and across business units. This process establishes both an objective measure of IT efficiency and effectiveness and identifies opportunities for focus.

The Core Principles of Technology Business Management

The core principles of TBM are very similar to core principles of manufacturing or sales. IT is responsible for delivering to the business units a core set of IT products or services.

Cost Transparency

IT leadership must drive transparency into the total cost of delivering each IT product or service. This includes defining and identifying the core cost drivers of the IT service or product. The TCO of each service is highly analogous to a cost of goods sold (COGS) in a manufacturing environment. This deep understanding of unit costs and cost drivers empowers IT managers to make better cost-based decisions and surgically reduce cost while improving service quality.

IT must establish transparency with their business units by delivering a Bill of IT or “pro forma invoice” on a regular basis. This Bill of IT should make clear to the business unit what IT services they consume and the cost and quality of those services.

What is Technology Business Management (TBM)?

Every corporate function— sales, manufacturing, human resources — has a business management solution today except for IT. Sales executives have a Customer Relationship Management solution from Siebel or Salesforce. Manufacturing executives have an Enterprise Resource Planning solution from SAP or Oracle. Human resources executives have a Human Resources Management solution. Given the strategic impact of IT to both the top and bottom line of a company, the time has come for a solution to help CIO’s and IT executives run IT like a business.

Technology Business Management is an emerging category of software solutions designed to help CIOs and IT executives manage and communicate the cost, quality and value of IT Services.  TBM brings the best practices of financial and performance management evolved for sales and manufacturing and applies those to the complex environment of IT.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has matured from buzzword to a dynamic infrastructure used today by thousands of organizations. Leading analysts, including thought leaders from Gartner, Forrester, and IDC agree that this new model of computing offers significant advantages for fast-paced start-ups, Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs) and enterprises alike.
Today, forward-thinking business leaders are using the cloud within their enterprise data centres to take advantage of the best practices that cloud computing has established, namely:

•    scalability,
•    agility,
•    automation, and
•    resource sharing.

By using a cloud-enabled application platform, companies can choose a hybrid approach to cloud computing that employs an organization's existing infrastructure to launch new cloud-enabled applications. This hybrid approach allows IT departments to focus on innovation for the business, reducing both capital and operational costs and automating the management of complex technologies.
Cloud Computing Defined
In its simplest form, cloud computing consists of shared computing resources that are virtualized and accessed as a service, through an Application Programming Interface (API). The physical resources may reside in a number of locations inside and outside of an organization:

•    on local hardware,
•    in an enterprise data centre, or
•    at remote or managed service provider’s on a pay-for-use basis.

Cloud computing resources are offered as a service on an as-needed basis, and delivered by the Internet (IP-based connectivity), providing highly scalable, reliable on-demand services with agile management capabilities.