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Developer Satisfaction

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contact [email protected]

Date: July 7, 2010

Developer Satisfaction Survey #1

Mobile Application Markets:

Report #1 - Nokias Ovi Store

OVI Store Continues to Improvebut Significant Challenges Remain
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]

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MOBILE APPLICATION MARKETS: DEVELOPER SATISFACTION

OVI Store Continues to Improve but Significant Challenges Remain

Report #1 in an ongoing series of developer satisfaction surveys.

SUMMARY

Nokias Ovi Store was launched a little over one year ago, May 26th 2009. Almost

immediately the company issued a statement apologizing to users who were unable to

access the service due to ...extraordinarily high spikes of traffic...1 Since then there have

been substantial improvements and the store no longer suffers from the kinds of outages

reported just after its launch. And volume has continued to scale with downloads passing

1.7 million daily in April.

2

Developers recognize the improvements over the past year and more than 80% said they

would be sticking with Nokia and Ovi with the expectation that their experience would

continue to improve. But having 20% of Nokias top developers suggest that they would

leave Ovi is certainly a sign of trouble ahead if remaining problems are not addressed, and

developers were quick to offer advice on what Nokia must do to keep them engaged.

Number one, and perhaps the most perplexing amongst developers identified by Nokia as

best sellers, was a concern about how many downloads these developers were actually

getting, and the money they were making as a result. Amongst developers selling their

application less than 20% of developers were either making as much as they had expected

or more and over 80% complained that they were making less, and some far less, then

they had anticipated (see section 9 of this report). In a competitivemarketplace with

Googles Android and Apples iPhone luring developers away from Nokia, this has to be

Nokias number one concern although developers offered many additional suggestions

when asked about specific areas of the store and when given the opportunity to make open

comments about how Nokia might improve Ovi (see section 14 of this report).

1 Ovi Blog - Update on Ovi Store Opening

http://blog.ovi.com/2009/05/26/update-on-ovi-store-opening/

2 Nokia Conversations Ovi Stores Dapper Downloads

http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/04/23/ovi-stores-dapper-downloads/

http://open-first.com - Open-First July, 2010 Pa
http://open-first.com/http://open-first.com/http://open-first.com/http://open-first.com/http://open-first.com/http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/04/23/ovi-stores-dapper-downloads/http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/04/23/ovi-stores-dapper-downloads/http://blog.ovi.com/2009/05/26/update-on-ovi-store-opening/http://blog.ovi.com/2009/05/26/update-on-ovi-store-opening/

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METHODOLOGY:

The findings presented here are taken from a survey conducted between June 1 and June

18, 2010. During that time, 100 Ovi Store publishers responded to a questionnaire, whichconsisted of 11 multiple-choice questions and 7 essay questions.

Out of the total number of responses received, 20 publishers were interviewed over the

phone, while the other 80 publishers responded to an online questionnaire.

The respondents to this survey were not randomly selected but were found through a

search for top selling and top free Nokia apps for the 5800 XpressMusic, 5530

XpressMusic, E71, E72, 2700, E61, E63, 7210 SuperNova, 3120 CLASSIC, N73, and N97

Nokia devices. 350 developers were identified through this process.

Participating developers are representative of a sample of app developers and publishers

for top Nokia devices across Europe, Asia, America, and Australia.

Participants answered questions about their experience with Ovi Store. The survey focused

on four areas:

1. PublishingHow satisfied are they with the registration process in Ovi Store?

How satisfied are they with the content submission process in Ovi Store?

How satisfied are they with the content editing process in Ovi Store?

How satisfied are they with the timing of the quality assurance process in Ovi Store?

2. Support

How satisfied are they with the support given to them by Ovi Store?

How satisfied are they with the support provided by Ovi Store to purchasers of their

software?

What problems did they encounter with Ovi Store?

Out of all the support inquiries they receive, how many are related to a problem with Ovi?

What are the most common support inquiries they receive?

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How satisfied are they with the Discussion Boards hosted by Forum Nokia Online

Community?

3. Revenues

Are they earning more or less money that they had anticipated, and why?

How satisfied are they with the reports downloadable from Ovi?

How satisfied are they with the accuracy of reported revenues compared to actual

revenues?

4. App stores comparison

How satisfied are they, overall, with Ovi Store?

Are there any other app stores that they have used?

How do the other app stores compare, in their opinion, to Ovi Store?

What could Nokia do, in their opinion, to improve Ovi Store?

Would they use Ovi Store again to publish their apps?


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SURVEY RESULTS:

1.Prior to publishing apps in Ovi Store, publishers must register at publish.ovi.com.How satisfied are you with the overall registration process?

39% of respondents said they were satisfied with the overall registration process in Ovi

Store. No major issues encountered while registering were reported, although 3% of

publishers think that developers shouldn't be charged for publishing.


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2. Once you have created a Publisher Account, you can start creating new content.

a. How satisfied are you with the overall content submission process?

b. How satisfied are you with the content editing process?

Content Submission Process:

While 40% of respondents said they were less than somewhat satisfied with the overall

process for publishing content to Ovi, the remaining 59% said they were satisfied with the

overall process and didn't have any complaints.

The most common comments and reported issues about the registration process include:

Issues with the certification process being complicated

Issues with Ovi Store rejecting apps for incorrect reasons; unclear QA

requirements; long QA process

Uploaded content taking a while to be visible on the store

Management and selection/setup of different languages, countries and mobile

platforms being complex.


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The Quality Assurance process seems to be causing the most issues to publishers. They

often reported Erratic and inconsistent QA results and a lack of arbitration / contact with

testers in the quality review process. Some also said The submission process is too

lengthy and sometimes not transparent. Also there is no clear indication on how to make

your content searchable.

Other comments on the lack of communication from Nokia in the QA process phase were

You don't get any feedback/recommendations on what can be improved when an app is

rejected.

The results from the QA process can need follow-up questions and discussion, and it is not

clear how to actually proceed with such issues.

In general, a frequent comment provided by those who were unhappy with the Content

Submission process was: The whole process is painful with unnecessary steps and

prerequisites.

Content Editing Process:

45% of respondents said they were less than somewhat satisfied with the Content Editing

Process in Ovi Store. The most common problem they encounter while editing their content

in Ovi Store has to do with the long time it takes them to get their changes approved

especially when the changes and updates are relatively small. Publishers think this process

should be improved and Ovi should allow for updates and minor changes to be done quickly

and without having to go through the whole content submission process.

Frequent comments about the content editing process include:

Often a request for change when submitted needs to wait 3-4 days before

approval. Even for minor changes

It is frustrating for tiny edits

It's too complicated

I only modified some description of my app, but it takes weeks!!

In general, some fields cannot be updated without re-publishing.


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3. All content items submitted for publishing go through a quality assurance

process. How satisfied are you with the timing of the QA process?

When specifically asked about their satisfaction with the TIMING of the QA process, 65% of

respondents said they were neutral or dissatisfied. In general, they complained that the QA

system is slow and very little information is provided or communication is inconsistent.

Some said the timing isn't bad but could be faster for minor updates, and suggested a

priority system for more important issues to be solved quickly. Some others said the timing

isn't the shortest time compared to other stores.

Another comment was: The approval process for new apps is quick enough but then apps

aren't immediately published.

Comments similar to this one were common:

Recently, one of our apps failed QA but we did not receive the usual email to inform us of

this, we just noticed it in Ovi publish but it didn't say why it had failed. I sent an email to

support asking them to confirm the reasons for fail and 48 hours later they have still not

replied!


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4. If you needed help or information in using Ovi Store, how do you rate the

following?

a. Support given by Ovi Store to publishers

b. Customer service provided by Ovi Store to purchasers of your software

Support given by Ovi Store to publishers

13% of respondents said they have never asked for support while using Ovi Store. Of the

remaining respondents who have asked for support, 20% said they weren't satisfied nor

dissatisfied with it.

37% of the respondents who have asked for support said they were unhappy with the way

Nokia handles support to Ovi Store publishers. These publishers reported issues such as

slow or no replies, unclear replies, not visible or insufficient contact information.

Common comments include:

Queries sent to the [email protected] email address wee answered

extremely slow.

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Slow response time via email, almost no response on forums, no direct person address.

I don't know how to get support at all.

I had to search for Ovi support email address for help. It should be mentioned in header/

footer for help after log-in to Ovi publisher account.

I had to send 4 emails to get a response. Even then they did not solve my problem and I

am still waiting.

Support provided by Ovi Store to purchasers:

Of those developers who had received reports from purchasers of support provided by Ovi

Store, responses were split evenly between those that were satisfied and those dissatisfied

with the quality of the support provided.


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5. What problems did you encounter with Ovi Store for which you needed support?

When asked what specific problems they encountered while using Ovi Store, MOST

publishers mentioned the following:

Long/Delayed QA and publishing process

When we first uploaded our apps to the OVI store, it took months for them to be

available for purchase.

Inadequate application visibility / search ability in Ovi

There's no way to support promotion with Ovi Store

It's not clear where you end up being displayed on Ovi

Big problems with the search engine.

Lack of support / communication; inconsistent or unclear guidelines

Apps rejected for unclear or incorrect reasons

Inadequate Digital Rights / Security management (e.g.: content got stolen/copied)

Compatibility issues on different phone models

App initially turned down on some phones

There are a lot of models, for which one can upload content, that don't support Ovi

Client.

Delayed reports / Faulty stats

Delayed payments

Other publishing issues (e.g. Language / distribution / mobile platform selection)

Other issued they mentioned LESS FREQUENTLY were:

Issues with time limited licensing

Registration process is tedious, long and not clear

No transparency in terms of how they rank the popularity of apps.

Only 9% of participants reported no issues or minor issues with Ovi.


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6. Out of all the support inquiries that you receive, please estimate the percentage of

inquiries related to a problem with Ovi Store encountered by someone trying to

purchase or use your software:

13% of total respondents reported that more than 10% of all support inquiries are related to

problems with Ovi. The remaining 87% of respondents said they receive a few (less than

10%) or no support inquiries related to Ovi.

7. What's the most common support inquiry that you receive from purchasers of your

software on Ovi Store?

According to respondents, the most common support inquiries related to Ovi are:

Payment issues

Download/Installation issues

Software operating issues

Issues with searching/finding apps in Ovi

Purchasers are often unable to understand the product's use from the very short

description and the small screenshots provided by Ovi Store

Upgrade issues

Purchasers cannot re-download apps after resetting their phones or if software can't

be found in the phone after the first download (even if they paid for it)

Incompatibility issues with some devices and in certain countries.

Comments on the payment/download issues are usually similar to this:

I bought software. Credit card was charged, but file not received. Still not havent received

the file after one year of waiting and several attempts to get in contact with support for

delivery of the file. Purchases fail way too often for whatever reasons.


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8. Forum Nokia Online Community hosts Discussion Boards designed to support

developers. How do you rate the Discussion Boards' overall effectiveness?

90% of respondents are familiar with the Nokia Online Community's Discussion Boards for

developers. When we asked publishers to rate their satisfaction with the Discussion Boardson a scale from 1 to 7, the average answer was 4.66.

Publishers didn't provide any insightful feedback or comments on the Discussion Boards but

the majority of them dont seem to be unhappy with them overall.


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9. If you are selling your app, are you earning more or less money that you had

anticipated? And why?

57% of those surveyed are selling their applications in Ovi, while the remaining respondents

distribute their applications for free.

Of all the respondents who are selling their apps, 80.7% said they're making LESS money

on Ovi that they had expected.

When asked what are the reasons why they think this is happening, they mentioned the

following:

Inadequate visibility / search ability of paid apps in Ovi

(Interviewed publishers indicated this as the main reason for low sales)

Inadequate categorization of apps in Ovi - that makes it hard to find them

Ovi client not working properly on some devices

Nokia users not being used to paying for apps

Ovi not having enough visitors

Operators' share, taxes and Ovi's share being too much (and forcing publishers

to set higher prices which decrease consumer purchases)


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Payment/download issues encountered by purchasers

Lack of Digital Right Management that generates lots of piracy.

On the visibility issue, publishers said they're unhappy with the tools provided by Ovi to

promote paid apps in Ovi.

Some also said the new easy widgets from Ovi allow people to upload RSS apps into the

store within 24h, that's faster than what real apps can be approved and the store is flooded

with those apps and premium apps soon disappear in the crowd.

7 respondents said they make less money in Ovi that they make by selling the same apps in

other app stores. 3 respondents said they are earning much less than they used to earn

with Nokia Software Market.


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10. Ovi publishers have access to daily reports of downloads, purchases, and other

metrics. How do you rate the following?

a. Overall clarity of reports

b. Accuracy of reported sales compared to actual revenues

Overall clarity of reports

8% of respondents said they are not familiar with the reports downloadable from Ovi.

Of the remaining respondents who said they are familiar with these reports, 64% are happy

with them while 21% aren't satisfied with these reports and think the reports:

Could be more detailed and include: demographic data, page views, etc.

Could be updated more often with new data

Could be available in more formats.

Accuracy of reported sales revenue compared to actual revenue

When asked how the sales reports reconcile with the payments they receive from Nokia for

sold apps, publishers either replied that they don't pay much attention to that OR said the

lag between the actual sales and the payment makes it impossible to compare the two.


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11. How satisfied are you, overall, with Ovi Store?

15% of interviewed publishers said they rate Ovi as average, while 43% of them said they

are less than satisfied with Ovi and 42% said they are somewhat satisfied / satisfied / very

satisfied with Ovi.

A common comment on the overall satisfaction with Ovi was that while they're quite happy

with the UI, the fact that they're making less money than expected makes them overall less

than satisfied with Ovi.

In general, the majority of them seemed to think that Ovi has been improving over time.


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12. Are there any other app stores that you have used? If so, can you name them?

30% of respondents said they're not currently using any other app stores, while the

remaining 70% are using other stores. The most frequently used stores are:

Apple's app store, iTunes, iStore

BlackBerry App World

Handango

PlayNow

Windows Marketplace

GetJar

Android Market

Samsung Apps

Ericsson eStore


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13. How do the other app stores compare, in your opinion, to Ovi Store?

42.25% of respondents using other app stores said they think Nokia's Ovi Store is BELOW

AVERAGE, while 36.62% think Ovi is average and 21.13% think Ovi is ABOVE average.

Some of the reasons why they think Ovi is below average are:

The QA process for Ovi takes longer and the communication process with the

testing team is worse

Ovi Store is less smooth and easy to use than other stores (e.g. Apple)

The same applications sell less on Ovi than they sell in other stores.


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14. What could Nokia do, in your opinion, to improve Ovi Store?

Interviewed publishers provided several ideas and recommendations on the improvements

they would like to see in Ovi. These include suggestions on both the end user and the

publisher side:

Promotion

They should make it easier to promote your apps in store, yet filter the junk better

Much more and better promotion is needed, e.g. including daily apps in Ovi store,

highlights, rankings

Implement a 'rotative advertising' for apps so that each developer gains time

chunks with more visibility in Ovi channel

Put less emphasis on free content

To allow ad-networks without restriction, in order to be able to earn money from free

apps

Possibility to update apps and notify users who have them installed

Enable all price points

Search and categorization need a huge improvement.

Reporting

Ability to know who and when the app was bought

Faster on time statistics for new published content so that developers can react

faster to results


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Better reporting tools. For instance Id like to download a file with all my

transactions, so that I can make cross-statistics.

Development

Standardize on development tools and handset capabilities

Have less phone models so we wouldn't have to worry about what models support

our software

The content protection scheme must change. It is just too easy to pirate games

from Ovi.

Publishing

Make uploading applications much more convenient and review for submission take

a shorter time

QA process should be quicker and less testing should be required

Improve navigation

Step by step uploading process for content - so when a step is completed it is

saved and if something goes wrong you don't have to do everything over again.

Support

Improve the feedback time to questions and inquiries through the contact us in the

publisher console.

End Users

Give developers possibility to comment on (user) reviews;

make it possible for publishers to communicate with users by answering their

questions on OVI

Introduce more robust user review capabilities and the ability for users to request

support directly to the publishers


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Optimize and speed up the submit review process

Improve the web store and enhance Ovi on device -- The Ovi client must improve

its user experience. It is slow, unresponsive, and it is hard to navigate through

content.

Find other ways to accept payments (Not only CC and operator billing. Maybe use

Ukash.com)

Introduce an easier payment system Store your credit card once, just click to buy

later. As in iPhone.

Have much more countries with operator billing

Support try and buy

Make Ovi store appealing not for publishers only, but first of all for customers!


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15. Would you use Ovi Store again to publish your apps?

81% of respondents said they are going to keep using Ovi Store, not necessarily because

they are happy with the store as it is today, but because they cannot avoid using it and

because they're seeing improvements.


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ABOUT OPEN-FIRST:

Open-First is a global consultancy dedicated to helping business leaders dramatically scale

their ability to discover, engage and interact with their markets, online, offline, and mobile.

Our services today include strategy, product development, business development, creative,

and technology support.

The core team comes from a variety of disciplines in technology, marketing, and corporate

communications:

Ted Shelton, co-founder and CEO

Ted has spent the past 20 years working in the high tech industry, as a software developer

and executive in both public and privately held companies. Most recently Ted developed anew participatory media platform called The Personal Bee, which was acquired by

Technorati in early 2007. Ted has been active in re-envisioning Technorati's product

roadmap and business strategy and as a part of this effort created The Conversation Group

as a key Technorati partner. Prior roles include Chief Strategy Officer of Borland Software

and Senior VP of Sales and Marketing for WhoWhere.

Eoin Russell, co-founder and Partner New York

Eoin Russell has over a decade of experience developing and managing global web andmobile destinations. He lead the strategy and implementation of Nokias MOSH site and the

Ovi store. MOSH, a website for user generated mobile content, became a top 500 site with

over 100 million items downloaded within two years of its launch. Ovi Store, Nokias

application store, is set to become the largest content distribution channel on the planet

reaching hundreds of millions of devices within the next two years. Before joining Open-First

Eoin was a partner interaction design agency Schematic, where he ran their London office.

Mark Adams, co-founder and Partner London

Mark Adams has spent nearly 20 years in technology marketing and 10 in corporate

finance. He co-founded the global technology PR firm, Text100, which grew to become Next

Fifteen Communications, owner of other marketing communications operations such as Bite

and OutCast, and which is listed on London's AIM stock market. He is now a Partner with

Pembridge Partners LLP, a UK-based finance and investment firm specializing in the media,


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Internet and creative sector where he has served as non-Executive Director and advises on

M&A and MBO transactions.

Andreas Weigend, Partner San Francisco

Andreas currently lectures at Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley

on the consumer data revolution and advises companies in his role with Open-First.

Originally a physicist by training, Andreas was attracted to the financial world due to his

deep fascination with how numerical information can be used in decision-making. As the

consumer Internet gained market acceptance in the mid-1990s, Andreas saw that even

vaster pools of information were being created within the early e-commerce companies. As

Chief Scientist for Amazon, Andreas oversaw the development of an extensive customer

information system that powers Amazons well-regarded recommendation engine and

informs Amazons corporate decision making.

ABOUT OPEN-FIRST DEVELOPER SATISFACTION SURVEYS:

As companies are increasingly relying upon relationships with third party developers to

extend their market research and product innovation strategies, they must also learn to

focus on the development of these ecosystems as an opportunity to bring value to all of the

participants. Evaluating the satisfaction of developers in these ecosystems is an important

measurement tool for companies interested in improving the success of such programs.

Our staff conducts monthly reviews of the primary three mobile application marketplaces in

order to provide a benchmark for the industry on how successful these programs are and

how they compare with one another. We also conduct private research for companies

interested in understanding how their own developer programs are faring.

This is just one part of our Developer Catalyst program in which we help companies

accelerate their success in creating, promoting, and operating successful developer

programs.

CONTACT US:

Open-First

695 High Street

Palo Alto, CA 94301

[email protected]

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