Symbian for Software Leaders: Principles of Successful Smartphone Development Projects

Chapter 3. Involving ISVs

ISV smartphone opportunity and risk

The success of the overall smartphone revolution depends upon the success of at least a small number of ISVs (Independent Software Vendors): people who work outside of the phone manufacturers, and who develop innovative new applications and services that significantly enhance the appeal of smartphones.

Many companies see this opportunity. There is no question of the potential for companies to achieve striking commercial success in this sector. Users who already spend anything between 30 and 100 USD on their phone bills each month can, in principle, be persuaded to spend anything between another 1 and 20 USD on additional services. Let's start by considering the pessimistic case of an additional spend, on average, of 2 USD per month, for 100 million smartphone users. Let's say that the ISVs manage to hold onto 20% of this (with the remainder being shared among network operators, publishers, retailers, and so on). That means 480 million USD reaching ISVs each year. Finally, let's imagine that the most successful of the ISV companies can each expect one-tenth of this (in other words, that there are around ten similarly successful companies). That makes for annual revenues for the company of 48 million USD.

For an entrepreneurial company, that's just the start. Standard business development theory teaches companies to focus on their potentially biggest customers. 5% of customers can provide well over 50% of the revenues. Keen ...