Should you invest in new Mobile Platforms?

It often comes up in discussions- should we invest in Windows Phone/8/Blackberry?

The answer as you might have guessed is- it depends. It depends on who you are, how big you are and who your consumers are.

If you are a publisher, probably you should wait for the platform to get some traction but be ready when it does. What it means is that a lot of marketing efforts will be wasted if you launch on a new platform with very small user base, but you should always develop your technology in such a way that you can easily port.

If you are a tech company (like us) new platforms are always to be explored. You might miss a disruption if you don’t. Apart from traction, you should care about trends and new platforms are a very good read on trends to come. We are always investing in teams working on new platforms because this is our R&D like any other industry. When something gets traction, it is already too late.

The second factor is size. If you are a huge, like Zynga, Rovio or EA, probably you should be everywhere. Even if revenues don’t justify that but when people expect you to be everywhere, it becomes important from a branding perspective that people searching for you are not disappointed. If you are a small publisher, wait before there is some traction to justify resource allocation to a new platform.

This actually is also a reason why it might make sense to hire an outside company to handle the tech portion for you for a new platform, rather than do it in house. Tech companies (good ones at least) are always investing in new technologies even before traction which might not make sense for you to do yourself as it is too small to be important. So, if you are a big games publisher who would like to have a presence in Windows Phone market but would not like to invest in a team long term because of then revenue numbers, it makes sense to find a company like us who are always exploring new tech just in case it is big one day.

Tell us what you think in comments below.