Why Apple’s Competitors Will Feel The Most Pain

Jonny Evans for Computerworld on how Apple’s enemies will ultimately be the ones most to feel the pain.

This isn’t just about Apple, though it holds a lead position within a market that’s diversifying rapidly as Nokia, BlackBerry, Android and Windows devices get ever more app smart.

Orange this week launched a new mobile apps hub which will let developers submit their software once for sale in all international markets. This will launch with Android app support with BlackBerry and Java apps to follow. The Android Market now has 100,000 apps vying for attention.

Independent app store GetJar (which offers apps to unlocked iPhones alongside those for other platforms) has seen over 1 Billion downloads to date.

All this evidence suggests that outside Apple’s App universe, there’s a growing number of app stores appearing, including those from hardware makers, some software platforms, carriers and independence.

There is too much repetition in such a fragmented and diverse market.