Stuart Bramley mentioned on Twitter that IBM i should really have it's own "app store." He may be on to something there. There's oodles of IBM i content on the web, from how-to's to fully functional applications someone has built and shared with the community.
I don't think anyone has tried to consolidate any of these tools into a community repository. If there is one, please let me know. But if one didn't exist, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in helping to facilitate one. If anyone in the IBM i world wants to weigh in with ideas or offer some help, or heck if you have a handy app you'd be willing to share/sell then please let me know.
My first thought...wouldn't it be awesome to browse and pull an app directly onto your IBM i similar to a PTF download in Fix Central? Why, yes. It would be very awesome.
Good idea, but IBM has never really embraced the user community for apps. Let's look at Domino as an example, because the NSF format lends itself to self-contained apps that can be easily distributed.
ReplyDeleteIBM has one vehicle already that they could use to distribute these tiny apps: Install media. They include some apps on the distro, but they're antique and dated. It wouldn't be difficult to buy up popular apps from the community and re-market them as their own (think the way Valve acquired Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, Portal, etc). They could acquire the app or the team, depending on potential. Alas, this never happened.
The other obvious market would be an iTunes-esque store. IBM has a perfect garden of Domino users to market to, and they could include links to the store directly in the client. Again, this never happened.
IBM did help with encouraging OpenNTF involvement, but that's tailored to a niche market: geeks. For instance, my boss has no idea OpenNTF exists as an app source. Even most the apps on OpenNTF are tailored towards developers an admins.
So, in a nutshell, I like your idea, but I don't see it taking root at IBM. IBM is more interested in selling you apps themselves instead of providing a platform or sales channel, IMHO.
Hi Mike,
ReplyDeleteWhat if it's not really made to take root at IBM, but were a community effort to consolidate all these tools, utilities, apps, and the like? IBM software is one thing, and I'm thinking that would be a licensing nightmare, but for a community effort it would be much less hairy. My thoughts are perhaps a little different than Stuart's.
I could go to someone's website and download a SAVF, but if there were one community area for this stuff I'd be more inclined to search there. I'm not really thinking something like OpenNTF for project collaboration, but more or less a proper catalog for apps and a single source for download.
That might work. Still, I think IBM legitimizing it by being openly involved would help immensely in a corporate environment. It would really be a struggle to get a store off the ground without IBM's involvement.
ReplyDeleteLet's use the Valve methodology, because I think there are alot of good things happening in that model that should be happening at IBM. Valve found several small gems in the rough (Portal, Left4Dead), and scooped them up. Valve offered immediate name recognition to those games, which before their involvement would only be found by a small subset of gamers. Now, you can get those games through the Valve store (Steam), and retail channels.
Valve also allows independent publishers to use their Steam store to market their wares. So, not only is Valve pushing homegrown content, co-written content, but they further fatten their store with countless other apps, all relying on the Steam delivery engine, shopping cart, etc. When I see a Steam game, it's relatively high quality, as there is a barrier to entry that keeps the riff-raff out.
Just my ramblings...