News this morning from AppDirect that it is acquiring another vendor, AppCarousel. That's lots of apps in there, so what is actually going on?
AppDirect delivers an application marketplace product. What that means is that organizations that want to deliver their own app stores (think telcos and banks) can white-label AppDirect's platform and quickly and easily deploy their own app store. AppDirect powers the app marketplaces for companies such as Telstra, ADP, Samsung and Deutsche Telekom. The company has grown fast and spans a huge variety of third-party applications, including the big names, Microsoft, Google and Box.
AppCarousel does a similar job but does it for connected devices. Customers user AppCarousel to deliver application marketplaces that not only feed to smartphones and tablets, but also cars and fleets, smart TVs and the growing number of devices connected to the Internet of Things. AppCarousel hasn't been in the limelight much but has grown significantly since its inception only four years ago. The company has enjoyed an annual growth rate of more than 70% since inception. The 80 or so employees from AppCarousel will be joining AppDirect.
“AppCarousel has built an amazing business delivering applications to a wide range of smart screens, in-car technology and home entertainment devices,” said Daniel Saks, AppDirect’s president and co-CEO. “AppDirect’s mission has always been to help people find, buy and use the software they need, and as of today that includes software on virtually any connected device.”
This deal makes sense. AppDirect rightly points out that the way app stores will work in the future is different to how they will work today — already we have seen a number of use cases of app stores being delivered in home appliances and automobiles, this acquisition helps AppDirect meet that market need.