SMB Mobile Application Procurement: Effects of the Application Store Arms Race

This IDC Insight examines the SMB market for mobile business applications, with a focus on the disruptive nature of platform-based application stores in the small business segment. While there are regional differences in how small and medium-sized businesses procure mobile applications, such as a strong reliance on mobile operators in the United States and a tendency to rely on VARs in Western Europe, platform-specific application stores offer new options for acquiring applications within a small or medium-sized business. Currently available application stores include the following:

• Apple App Store
• BlackBerry App World
• Android Market
• Palm App Catalog
• Windows Marketplace for Mobile (anticipated launch in late 2009)
• Nokia Ovi Store

While the application store channel is important to enterprises as a channel to download mobile clients for applications such as salesforce.com or SAP, it is in the small business segment where these stores will gain the most traction and have the largest effect.