A lot of buzz has been generated by Google’s annoucement of a Google Apps Marketplace. Like app-stores before it, third-party developers can use it to sell and distribute value-added software that enhances existing platform functionality, in this case to Google Apps. Although it may seem like Google is taking a play from Apple’s book, their model more closely represent another major cloud vendor which many of you may have heard of, Saleforce.
Salesforce has used their “AppExchange” since 2005 to provide unique customer solutions via their platform. This trend is here to stay with most major players, Apple, Microsoft, Google designing or implementing their own models.
If you go down one level away from the tier-1 platform vendors, companies like Intuit are extending popular applications like QuickBooks to a potential army of developers who would love to monetize on the financial platform. Intuit actually leverages Windows Azure to expose their cloud store.
The point being is that if you hate the cloud, too bad. It is easy to infer that any major application with a large enough user base can benefit from the ingenuity of third-party developers. Even before the cloud, Microsoft Office has proven itself as a magnet for great plug-ins and enhancements via OBA. It is only a matter of time until these experiences are delivered seamlessly online with zero-installation requirements in the traditional sense. If you still don’t believe me, here’s a shocker, the US Government has an app store, they even want to start regulating it! It is a true test of success for any idea that the government wants to regulate.
