Tag Archives: micrsoft

delphi, development, embarcadero, professional, software development, virtualization

Another Windows app store – but this time it is virtual. Embarcadero’s AppWave promises instant installs

Embarcadero has announced the AppWave Store, a forthcoming app store for Windows which uses application virtualization to avoid the hassles and risks of the usual Windows install process.

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The idea is that purchasing apps for Windows will be as simple as installing an app on a mobile using the Apple app store or Android Market.

The underlying technology was developed to simplify deployment of Embarcadero’s tools. The All-Access subscription includes a tool box application that lets you run tools using “InstantOn”, which means no installation, just click and run. I have used this for a while now and it works well.

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When you run an InstantOn tool for the first time, you are prompted to download:

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There is of course a pause while the app downloads. This is not thin client technology where the app actually runs remotely. It is installed on your local machine, but isolated so there are no dependencies or conflicts.

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Once downloaded, you just launch the application. No other setup, other than software agreement and registration prompt.

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The download is cached, so you can launch next time without delay, and it works offline too. AppWave is a rebranded version of InstantOn, and is also available for internal deployment of Embarcadero tools.

The AppWave store takes this technology and applies to a store for the general public. Developers will pay $99 per year (though the fee is waived if you sign up now) and get AppWave Studio, which lets you convert software to run under AppWave. The conversion process is called “mastering” and only takes a few hours, according to the FAQ [pdf].

Windows XP, Vista and 7 are supported clients, availability will be worldwide at launch, and Embarcadero takes 30% of your sale price. No launch date has been announced.

I guess the first big issue is whether developers will feel that the 30% fee is good value bearing in mind that there are many other ways to sell and deploy software.

Second, there are other app stores out there or coming, not least Microsoft’s own which is likely to be part of Windows 8. Will AppWave compete effectively?

Third, does Embarcadero have what it takes to market AppWave and make a destination for Windows users looking for apps?

App virtualization is a neat trick though, and could save significant support costs as well as being appealing for customers. Deploying apps using runtimes like Silverlight or Adobe AIR can be equally seamless, but apps have to be written specifically for those runtimes, whereas AppWave works with apps written for the full Windows API.

It is surprising that Embarcadero is not also marketing the AppWave technology for developers for general purpose use. Possibly this is coming; or maybe the company will try to keep it as an exclusive benefit for the AppWave store. There are alternatives, including Microsoft App-V and VMWare ThinApp.

See also Marco Cantu’s post Understanding Embarcadero AppWave, which is what alerted me to the AppWave store.

microsoft, mobile, open source, professional, qt, software development, windows

Qt will not be ported to Windows Phone 7 says Nokia

Director of the Qt Ecosystem Daniel Kihlberg has posted officially on the future of Qt, Nokia’s cross-platform application framework.

However you spin it, Nokia’s change of direction, relegating Symbian to low-end phones and focusing on Windows Phone as its Smartphone platform, is not good for Qt developers. Kihlberg offers a glimmer of hope for MeeGo though. Whereas CEO Stephen Elop was almost dismissive of MeeGo, saying that a device would be released as part of a learning process, Kihlberg positions it as a source of future disruption:

Nokia also announced it will ship its first MeeGo-related device in 2011, which will rely on the Qt ecosystem – and then will continue with MeeGo as an open source project for future disruption.  Nokia can’t afford to be behind the next disruption again and Qt can play an important role in making sure it isn’t.

But why not port Qt to Windows Phone, which needs a native development stack? Nokia’s Aron Kozak states in a comment:

Qt will not be ported to Windows Phone 7. One of the key benefits of joining an established ecosystem is that there is an established toolchain that everyone uses. All Windows Phone apps will run on all WP7 devices. Adding Qt to the mix would only cause fragmentation.

Unfortunate from a Qt perspective but wise from a developer ecosystem perspective.

In truth, this is near-fatal for the future of Qt at Nokia:

I have to say, Nokia made a bad decision jumping to WP7 knowing that Qt wouldn’t be on it. Now that Nokia did this, they basically went from Qt “Code once, run everywhere” to “Code once, run nowhere”.

says developer Keith Rusler.

The other problem is that developers feel misled:

When Elop came in he said that Qt will be the main framework. Symbian and MeeGo would be unified through Qt. We all stopped working on Symbian C++ and started learning Qt. We have now wasted 6 motnhs of our family’s lives on a dead end. If I knew this was going to happen, I would have started learning Java instead!

Irrespective of the business merits of Elop’s decision, the truth is that its relationship with developers has been deeply wounded. I am not sure how it could have been better handled – except that I think Nokia should have insisted on Qt support in Windows Phone – but I still observe that it has been handled badly. The evidence suggests that Elop under-estimates the importance of nurturing developers in the ecosystems he talks so much about.