Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, VP of social app developer Taptu, advised operators to focus their app efforts on the featurephone market, rather than attempting to win market share from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market. “If iOS and Android is being controlled fully by Apple or Google, I don’t think the operators should focus any effort there,” he said. “Instead, focus on other platforms that don’t necessarily have the same capabilities and don’t necessarily have the same relations with the user,” he advised.

“Where the opportunity is, and there is still a big enough opportunity, is to focus on app distribution and sales on feature phones. And let Apple and Google take control, as they do right now, of the App Store and Android Market,” Papamiltiadis (pictured) suggested.

Rather than looking to create their own app stores, operators could instead look to work with existing stores to offer co-branded channels – as Vodafone has with Android Market, for example. And they can also help developers by exploiting their acknowledged strengths in billing and distribution.

“The operator can help [developers] make money. There is no operator in the world that doesn’t have any billing in place. As a consumer, I don’t want to put my credit card details in Android Marketplace. I wouldn’t have the same concern to do that with my local operator,” he said.

“What the operator can do is create a different type of ecosystem, where the developer can get promoted in a different way. There might be premium placements, there might be editorial control of what is listed and what is not. And that is very helpful from the developer’s point of view, the operator can be a good friend,” he continued.

Through their access to customer information and usage data, operators also have the potential to create a socially-based recommendation network for apps, to help them achieve success through “virality.”

“The operator has a lot of information about who you are, what you do, who your friends are. There is a social network there, but they don’t use it. It might be that if people want them to, operators can use that information, and the app can get viral in a very short timeframe,” he said.

There is also an opportunity for operators to be a disruptive force in the industry, rather than working to maintain the status quo created by Apple and Google.  “Every time we see a new app store launched and maintained by an operator, they still do the 30/70 split. Why would I even bother to get my app there, if I get the same sort of revenue share from Apple or Google?”

In line with this, operators should view their app activities as a customer retention and service tool, rather than a revenue generator in its own right. “The operator’s shouldn’t expect to make money like this, they should expect to make money from their existing customers, who will be delighted to get a service that promotes good quality apps,” he said.

Papamiltiadis noted that currently, when assessing their strategies, developers face a number of questions: device type (smartphones, tablets or both), device platforms (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry), whether to create native or HTML5 apps, and potential monetisation models. But, “I never asked myself the question about which operator.”

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