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Growing demand for fancy and fun apps on smartphones and tablets is fuelling the growth of a new set of talent in the tech community. The app market has brought the app developer community to the fore.
Says Mr Shalin Jain, Founder of Chennai-based app development company Tenmiles: “The services market is saturated and mundane to quality developers. Apps have brought in new opportunities for tech talent in India.”
The Intel AppUp store has 23,000 registered developers – which has doubled in the last one year. Research in Motion has 36,000 registered app developers for BlackBerry compared to 4,000 a couple of years ago.
Mr Narendra Bhandari, Director, Software and Services Group, Intel, says India is among the top two countries contributing apps to the AppUp Center. Over 40 per cent of the 4,500 apps on the Center are from Indian developers.
According to Mr Amar Arsikere, Director, Product and Engineering, India Mobile, Zynga, makers of Farmville, the game studio requires talent across a range of skill sets – engineering, game design, art, product management and quality assurance disciplines.
While entertainment and gaming companies have explored apps to a large extent, online retailers too are also stepping in. CBazaar, an ethnic apparel retailer, developed an ecommerce app for the Windows 8 operating system a couple of months ago.
“Once people download the app, the conversion rates are higher. It also creates a loyal customer base as apps are always on the user's device,” says Mr Rajesh Nahar who owns Cbazaar.
The app ecosystem is also encouraging entrepreneurial and freelance ventures.
Intel AppUp Center not only has apps coming in from full-time app development companies, it also banks on software professionals writing apps in their spare time. There are also apps contributed by hobbyists and students. And there are software developers who have quit their jobs to focus on app development. Research in Motion is seeding this talent through the BASE (BlackBerry Apps by Student Entrepreneurs) programme for engineering students in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Plans are on to take it other States soon.
“There is a growing demand for app developers and we want to help the ecosystem grow,” says Ms Annie Mathew, Head of Alliances, RIM (India).
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