Title: Motivational profiles of toolkit users – iPhone and Android developers

Authors: Birgitta Bergvall-Kareborn, Michael Bjorn, Didier Chincholle

Addresses: Social Informatics, Lulea University of Technology, 971 87 Lulea, Sweden. ' Ericsson, ConsumerLab, Skeppsbron 2, 211 20 Malmo, Sweden. ' Business Unit Multimedia, SA Consumer and Business Applications, Ericsson AB, Kistavagen 25, Kista, SE-164 80 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: Toolkits for development and distribution of mobile applications can potentially influence the ecosystem for mobile services. While these toolkits began to surface in the late 1990s, it was not until 2008, when Apple launched its App Store, that their potential became more visible. For these toolkits to create value to all the different stakeholders, we need to understand these innovation milieus and their inhabitants, areas that are becoming increasingly important yet under-researched in the literature. In this paper, we address the questions of who the pioneering users of the Apple and Android owned toolkits are, what attracted them to the mobile application market, and what affected their choice of platform for mobile application development. Emerging from the analysis are four different developer profiles of early adopters of the Android and iPhone platforms.

Keywords: open innovation; toolkits; mobile application development; OSS developers; open source software; Android; mobile operating systems; Google; iPhone; smartphones; multimedia; mobile phones; cell phones; internet; world wide web; Apple; motivation; motivational profiles; toolkit users; mobile ecosystems; mobile services; App Store; digital applications; distribution platforms; stakeholders; developer profiles; United Kingdom; United States; Sweden; UK; USA; technology marketing; innovation design; customers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTMKT.2011.041942

International Journal of Technology Marketing, 2011 Vol.6 No.1, pp.36 - 56

Received: 18 Mar 2011
Accepted: 06 May 2011
Published online: 30 Sep 2014 *

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