In a recent Evans Data study, a large majority of surveyed developers said
they are dissatisfied with the 30/70 split they get from developing
applications for popular app stores.
In its Spring North American Development Survey, Evans Data found that 80 percent of
surveyed developers in North America said they think
they should receive more than 70 percent of the revenue generated by their
applications in an app store.
Evans Data surveyed more than 490 developers to get their perspective. Only
15 percent of respondents said they preferred app stores as the distribution
model for their applications. Yet, more than half of the developers said they
prefer direct sales to end users or enterprises as the distribution model for
applications.
The app store model became popular with Apple's iPhone and has emerged on
several other platforms, including those from other smartphone providers and
carriers. The app stores give developers, particularly small developers and
one-person shops, access to a vast network of potential customers. App store
operators obviously believe the power of their distribution channel warrants
the 30 percent fee they charge. However, as this Evans Data study shows, many
developers believe they should get a larger chunk of the revenue from their
applications.
Moreover, the Evans Data survey revealed that developers also take issue
with the restrictions imposed by app stores on price and content. More than 70
percent of respondents said they thought app stores should not impose any
restrictions on price, and while a third thought content restrictions were
acceptable, almost half thought there should be none at all.
"Virtually all of the best known app stores have fallen in line
directly with the 30/70 revenue split that Apple introduced, but there could be
a big upside for any vendor bold enough to deviate," Janel Garvin, CEO
of Evans Data, said in a statement. "If the app store is more a strategic
asset than a revenue center, then providing the developer with a better revenue
share model could go a long way toward promotion of that particular distribution
channel and thus growth of market share for a technology."
Another highlight of the survey was that 10 percent of respondents said they
currently use Objective C, the primary language used to develop applications
for Apple's iPhone and other products such as the Mac, iPad and iPod—and that
number is expected to grow to almost 12 percent in 2011.
In addition, 36 percent of developers surveyed said they plan to include
services that communicate with messages formally defined via XML Schema, and 64 percent said they
use agile development techniques at least some of the time.
The Spring North American Development Survey is the latest in a 12-year
series of surveys of developers in North America by
Evans Data.
Application Development News & Reviews 
