Android Market Integration - Do You Still Care?

In the mobile phone world, content management systems to allow users to download a variety of monetizable content and (largely J2ME based) applications have been around for more than a decade. Of course, the popularity of the iPhone and its associated AppStore have put a special spotlight on the importance of having a well-stocked offering to personalize a mobile device with, well, anything looking like a software application that you could possibly imagine you ever needed to have access to on a device that primarily lives in your pocket or purse.

One of the main developments during the last couple of years is that the aspect of ensuring API compliance and adequate performance of the mobile application with the underlying OS/virtual machine/execution environment, which previously was largely hidden because it was operator managed, has become a hotly discussed area. This is creating much friction between application developers, handset manufacturers, system integrators, operators and the OS gate keeper to the market place. In the case of the iPhone and Android, this responsibility is now largely assumed by Apple and Google respectively.

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