It’s fair to say that operators with their own app stores have struggled to make an impact in a mobile world dominated by the portals of the major handset makers and platform vendors.

Although Apple’s App Store is the only place where iOS apps can be obtained, Android Market, Windows Marketplace and BlackBerry App World dominate despite apps for the platforms being offered by operators and app aggregator sites such as Appia and GetJar. Appia, incidentally, provides the platform for many operator app stores.

Apps are financially benefiting developers and in Apple’s case, the device maker, but where does this leave operators with branded app stories which – although a source of some revenue – languish behind the platform app stores?

The answer may lie in looking to the alternatives. Other approaches could secure new revenue streams for operators, but also improve the quality of the apps themselves, benefiting developers, app stores and users alike.

An alternative path
Operators have resources that app developers could tap into to make their products even better. Information operators could open up to developers include location, presence, user and device identification, billing and user permissions. In general these capabilities aren’t being exploited by app developers, although there are initiatives attempting to drive this.

European and Latin America operator group Telefonica is looking to tap into the potential of sharing its resources with app developers through its BlueVia initiative. This offers developers access to APIs which allow them to integrate SMS, MMS, mobile advertising, user and device information, location data and in-app payment into their products, with a revenue sharing model.

Apps developed through BlueVia can be distributed appear through Telefonica’s O2 and Movistar app stores once they’ve passed the BlueVia App Store accreditation. They can also be distributed on other app stores if developers wish.

Another approach being used by the likes of AT&T, Sprint and US Cellular is to use a mobile cloud platform to link operator data to apps. For example, Aepona is one company which provides the means to do this, with a platform that allows developers to exploit core network assets of operators.

Like BlueVia, Aepona’s platform breaks the various network asset components into APIs for developers to access in exchange for sharing revenue on the apps that use the information. Aepona provides the APIs, but also the means for developers to pay operators for accessing their data.

“Having a lot of information about the user is of high value to those third party providers of content and applications. The other key thing is billing. The ubiquity of the operator billing relationships on a global level is obviously something else that [operators] can leverage and monetise,” Aepona marketing VP Michael Crossey told Mobile Apps Briefing.

Crossey added that this approach creates a “virtuous circle” which allows operators to “reassert themselves in the value chain” by having the means to monetise their network resources and by providing developers with a way to make better apps.

Gaining industry support
As reported by Mobile Apps Briefing, the GSMA is using the Aepona platform in its reference implementation of a service called OneAPI. Three Canadian operators – Bell, Rogers and Telus – are using the same platform to share data with developers, of which 300 are registered.  

The involvement of GSMA, along with Aepona investors BlackBerry Partners Fund and SAP Ventures, shows that players from across the technology industry are interested in tapping into the potential of this approach. BlackBerry maker RIM wants better apps, while SAP is clearly keen to understand how its increasingly mobile strategy can take advantage of operator resources.

BlueVia and Aepona both show how operators can secure revenue from mobile apps through means other than building their own app stores. While app stores from handset makers and mobile platform may continue to dominate, operators have other opportunities to benefit from the explosion of apps.

If operators can increasingly allow developers to access their resources in exchange for revenue, they can become key players in the app ecosystem.

Tim Ferguson

The editorial views expressed in this article are solely those of the author(s) and will not necessarily reflect the views of the GSMA, its Members or Associate Members