Third-party application sales have been a cornerstone of the drive towards widespread user adoption of sophisticated smartphones. However, selling applications to Symbian device users is not without its challenges.

The initial market for Symbian applications appeared to be very heavily biased towards UIQ (with Nokia Series 80 Communicators periodically pulling a significant market share). The early P series phones from Sony Ericsson regularly topped Handango's list of handsets adding the most software. This perception is confirmed by Jeanne. "One and a half to two years ago we generated more revenue from UIQ application sales than S60. The situation began to change with the release of devices based on S60 3rd Edition, in 2005, which saw a significant growth in the shipments of S60 devices and owners purchasing more add-on software for their 3rd Edition devices. As a result S60 applications now bring us the most revenue. However, while S60 software is now our biggest revenue earner, our typical UIQ owning customer still buys more software than a typical S60 customer."

The number of phone models released makes a difference too. "We regularly see significant growth in application sales when new phones come to market," says Jeanne, "This is especially true for particularly popular models. So, for us, its not just about how many devices are sold, but about how many different devices are launched each year."

While UIQ has been replaced by S60 as Epocware's best revenue generator, Epocware remains equally committed to both. "With more UIQ devices arriving in the market, sales of UIQ software will continue to be important to us," says Jeanne. "However, the sheer volume of S60 devices means that S60 is likely to remain the most lucrative platform for us in the near future."

When it comes to getting software to users, well established (what Jeanne terms "traditional") online sales prove most effective for Epocware. "These days our own site accounts for the most sales to mobile device owners," says Jeanne. "This is followed by Handango and Motricity, then manufacturer's stores such as Nokia Software Market and Sony Ericsson Application Shop. This contrasts with the situation in the past when partner's or manufacturer's stores accounted for most of the sales."

One of the channels that has always promised to be lucrative, but has rarely lived up to expectation, is operators. "Operators tend to have a very specific vision of the image they want to project through the third-party applications they sell, if they choose to sell applications at all. Most operators are still in a content 'stone age', offering mostly ring tones and games," says Jeanne. "Most operators have not yet realized the benefits of providing extra services through applications. However the situation is changing with some pioneer operators, and there is no doubt that the others will eventually follow, even if it does take some time. Meanwhile, successfully selling to most operators depends a lot on having applications that match their vision. Even then the most popular applications with operators are those that offer long term network usage."

Jeanne notes that Epocware has not seen any dramatic change in the interest shown by operator channels since the introduction of Symbian Signed. This is interesting, as Symbian Signed was always perceived as being a concession to operators' nervousness about the support costs for third-party software. However, as Epocware adopted Symbian Signed early, it avoided the risk of finding that a lack of Symbian Signed would affect operator channel access.

While Epocware sells software through the channels provided by its partners, the company is continually looking to develop its own channels to stay a step ahead of those "traditional" channels. A case in point is epocware.mobi fro which users can purchase and download software directly to their phones. "Creating a mobile optimized sales channel has proved to be a valuable addition to our outlets," says Jeanne. "It is just coming up on a year since we launched epocware.mobi, in autumn 2006, but already more than 20% of our online sales come from this channel."

However, Jeanne does not believe Epcoware's biggest challenge is finding go-to-market channel. "Software sales look good until you examine the percentage of users adding third-party software on their phones. The number of Symbian smartphone owners buying software is still small compared to the total number of shipments," says Jeanne. "One reason for this is that many people are simply unaware that software is available and as a result aren't searching for it."

Jeanne has experienced this problem first hand. "I was recently taking Dutch language classes, and my teacher was impressed that I had a Van Dale dictionary on my Nokia E65. She commented that such an application must be handy, but noted with regret that her phone could not do that," says Jeanne. "I was curious which phone she was using. It turned out to be a Nokia E50, so I was able to tell her she could install the same dictionaries on her phone. Then I showed her Handy Weather and she immediately wanted to have both applications on her phone. Like so many users, my teacher did not realize it is possible to install extra applications on her E50. She had no understanding of the platform her phone uses and therefore how to identify software that could run on it. If manufacturer's like Sony Ericsson and Nokia want to support third-party developers, educating their phone users must be a priority."

Jeanne believes that correctly targeted education can have a significant impact. She points to a number of presentations, ones she herself has made and other by qualified speakers, to audiences of end users and resellers explaining the benefits of installing additional applications onto a smartphone. She notes that these simple education events can have a dramatic effect. "When members of the audience became aware of the possibilities offered by smartphones, some indicate a desire to change their phone to a smartphone to take advantage of these new possibilities. I've seen others, who already own a smartphone, starting to purchase applications immediately after a presentation," says Jeanne. "User education should become a number one priority in the next stage of building the mobile software and services ecosystem."

For more information about Epocware and its products visit www.epocware.com or http://epocware.mobi from your Symbian OS smartphone.