Amazon Appstore
1) Amazon is a Retailer. Retail DNA. Retail Brains. Retail Ambitions.
2) Amazon’s brand is the most powerful thing it owns. Similar to how people now associate “Google” with Search, “Amazon” holds the power to be associated with Retail - at the expense of the current retail brick and mortar giants.
3) Amazon’s strategy for sustaining its brand is buying out (or killing) competing online retailers that have shown success in gaining name recognition and appeal (Zappos is a prime example). Buy or kill the competition before it becomes too big to buy or kill.
4) Amazon cannot buy or kill iTunes/App Store and Amazon sees the writing on the wall. An ecosystem such as Apple’s iTunes/App Store is in a prime position to expand its reach into online commerce - at Amazon’s expense. iTunes/App Store represents danger to Amazon’s long-term sustainability and strategy of becoming the unanimous destination for online retail and commerce.
5) Amazon now has its own mobile application marketplace, using Android apps to fill the shelves. Revenues and profits will largely be a non-factor, similar to the black box surrounding the Kindle/eBooks ecosystem. Amazon’s prime goal in creating a curated appstore is to compete against Apple, remain relevant, and stay on track to becoming the Walmart of the Web - the first and only destination for online retail.