A framework for mobile application discovery and acquisition

Mobile application development is a field that has gone through rapid change during the past two decades. Where once the development and control of mobile devices was in the hands of the phone manufacturer and the network carrier and development was done 'in house', the evolution of mobile device capabilities has expanded the potential for mobile application developers. This evolution has created four main actors in the world of mobile applications, the network carrier, phone manufacturer, technology service provider, and mobile application developer. The first three actors, who feature segmentation within each of themselves, have a profound impact on the last group, the mobile application developer. The mobile application developer must run through a gauntlet of important decisions and choices to create a successful and marketable application. In this thesis we will outline the mobile market and provide insight into mobile application development. We will look at the challenges mobile developers face, and view business models and value chains in the mobile market. We will observe the choices available to mobile application developers in marketing and distributing their mobile applications, the challenges they face with the choice of distribution channel. A framework is developed that aggregates the major mobile application distribution channels to provide a method to locate, purchase, and download a mobile application regardless of its distribution channel.