By Brian Bissett, Publisher & Editor of The MFP Report

Screen Shot 2013-06-27 at 8.12.44 PMI remember when dear old Dad proudly purchased his very first pair of jeans back in the ‘70s … not dungarees for working in the yard or under the car, but medium-blue flare “jeans.” It embodied his attempt to be a little more “with it.” That’s how I feel today, when I see in the MFP industry a new-found amour for “apps.”

Like my Dad, MFP vendors — originally Lexmark and Kyocera, then Konica Minolta and Xerox, and surely others to follow — are beginning to embrace an apps-centric mantra that reflects dynamic new market realities and a fresh view of the world, combined in no small part with a desperate longing to be cool.

Arguably but inauspiciously, it was HP and Lex- mark three years ago who were the first hard- copy vendors to embrace the promise of apps. Of course, their focus was on the other end of the spectrum, centered around a new generation of app-friendly inkjet AIOs for home and SOHO use. But Lexmark shuttered its inkjet business last year. And HP is struggling with declining AIO sales and no longer touts apps so much. It’s not that apps are to blame for today’s inkjet woes, but they’ve done little to make things better. And there are lessons to be gained from that history.

The biggest caution for app-happy MFP vendors based on the AIO experience is understanding that interest in apps declines rapidly the further physically or emotionally the device is from the end user’s hand, pocket or mind. That sense of ownership, access and personal dependence simply doesn’t exist for an MFP down the hall.

Another worrisome corollary for MFP vendors comes from understanding the way mobile apps are really used. It’s certainly true that mobile app use is exploding. A year ago, Nielsen calculated the average US smartphone user had 41 apps, 30% more than the year before. And a new study from Flurry found 80% of mobile minutes on smartphones involves apps. But here’s the kicker. Gaming accounts for 32% of those min- utes, and social networking is another 24%. So what portion of mobile minutes were devoted to “productivity apps” … a whopping 2%! And there’s amazing churn. Two-thirds of the apps a user has today weren’t on his phone a year ago.

It’s worth noting, too, that a huge chunk of apps don’t really “do” something in the sense that a desktop application does. Rather, lots of apps merely reformat desktop web content and web sites for better viewing on a small screen with less reliance on a keyboard and no mouse.

If all that weren’t enough, financial metrics in the mobile app business are fraught with seem- ing contradictions. On one hand, the Wall Street Journal estimates mobile app revenue has al-

ready surpassed $25 billion. Apple and Android have built huge app stores, each offering over 800,000 apps. Despite a few promises and a little progress, no MFP vendor has yet created a functional app store. Meanwhile, Cambridge University last year found that 73% of Android apps were free, with 80% of those relying on ads to generate revenue for the publisher.

Having said all this, the shift toward apps in the office MFP business has the poten- tial to do several pretty good things. For the most part, these benefits derive from the very nature of apps and how they differ from traditional MFP solutions.

Apps aren’t designed to solve a plethora
of complex business problems, so the
shift toward apps should mean an unbun- dling of complex MFP software in favor of simple, more intuitive, single-purpose
tools. That’s probably a good thing, and it could open much greater swaths of the customer base to MFP apps. Even after a long decade of trying, use of today’s leading MFP solutions skews decidedly toward big accounts.

Several other positive developments could de- rive from this profound shift. By appealing to smaller customers and simpler use cases, overall penetration of apps should far exceed what’s seen today with higher-end solutions. The expe- riences of Lexmark and Kyocera support this. And simpler, lower-priced apps would seem to be a downright necessity in a market that’s rap- idly shifting toward less expensive A4 machines, where pricey MFP software can be a tough sell.

The holy grail would be for new kinds of MFP apps to emerge that appeal strongly and directly to end users, rather than to IT folks or manage- ment. The best bets there seem to be new apps that appeal to workers in SMB environments who are big users of cloud-based repositories.

BUT … the industry must accept the financial norms of the mobile app world: many or even most MFP apps will be free. It already seems to be happening. Nor do I anticipate ad-supported MFP apps or ones that generate lots of prints. These cold realities provide much-needed clarity for the MFP software business model. Like it or not, MFP apps will exist solely to differentiate competitors and drag hardware. That’s it. The silver lining is that truly worthwhile, higher-end software from MFP vendors and their partners will still have an audience, but those applications will remain in the domain of select higher-end accounts. Apps will neither save nor kill the MFP solutions business … but their impact will be felt.

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