Creative Online Marketing, Link Building and Ecommerce

I invest in Qualcomm stock so I follow their news - and read this REALLY interesting piece today about them that talks about how BREW - Qualcomm's mobile phone software platform for "NON-smart phones" registered sales of $3B through its applications . But the interesting piece was that there are only 18,000 apps in the BREW platform as of now, and only a small number of these are popular. Assuming 10k successful applications, and averaging the $3 billion across the 10k apps, that's $300,000 business per app. Not bad at all, I would'nt mind being the developer of one of those apps.

 I read another piece recently about how Apple-platform App developers are not in as much demand as they used to be just 18 months ago. There are just too many apps out there already and too many app developers too. There is still a TON of demand for new apps, no doubt, but it's a commodity now, whereas, BREW app developers are still in demand, despite the relative lackluster platform. BREW apps carry a regular cell phone archaic interface, but at the end of the day, their developers make more, at least that's what  these 2 articles seem to suggest. Now, my conclusion is obviously not based on a lot of research but let me get to the point.

It is almost always more profitable "as a provider" to be in a market with steady low demand with a small number of providers (supply). Your skills are difficult to find and it's easier to charge a higher fee and you are not constantly worried about competition. 

I see the same situation in today's Enterprise Software market. "Generic" Java, .NET developers usually have to endure a rapid change curve (these technologies are evolving very very fast). Not only are the software platforms changing, the underlying best practices and development methodologies are evolving as well. On the other hand, those that "specialize" in a small niche - for instance, with a Business Process Management or Enterprise Document Management software such as Lombardi, IBM FileNet or Documentum or Opentext Livelink, demand for services for these applications is steady since large corporations own these software and usually spend big bucks to get high quality consultants to do their work. The methodologies and the platforms that these software a built on is NOT state of the art usually, but the demand is steady and almost always better-paying. So where would you like to be - .NET developer or IBM FileNet developer?

This applies very much in SEO and online marketing. Instead of chasing the latest and the greatest, it can sometimes be better to find and stick to offering a service that has steady demand among larger sized clients.