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European startup takes aim at app duopoly

Amsterdam (NL)/Berlin (DE), June 19th 2013

Today European tech company 5apps launches a new class of service designed to speed up the way users obtain apps for mobile phones and web browsers. 5apps' unique technology provides app makers with a superior, vendor independent alternative that allows them to automatically create apps for multiple platforms based on the same code - and serve them directly to customers in real-time.

"It is an understatement to say that the app economy is a considerable commercial success", says Sebastian Kippe, one of the two founders and co-director of 5apps. "But everyone recognises that the market is not at all healthy and transparent for developers, consumers or in fact retailers. We believe that developers should not be forced to choose to bet on a single vendor and be taxed heavily for the privilege, nor that users are limited in their choice and freedom of movement across platforms and devices."

The marketplace for smart phone applications and tablets is currently dominated by two large platforms - iOS and Android - but recently a number of interesting challengers have emerged such as Firefox OS, Tizen, Blackberry and Ubuntu. At the same time other platforms using web apps already exist, such as Microsoft's Windows 8 and Google's Chrome OS. The solution 5apps provides allows developers to shrinkwrap web apps for all of these platforms using ubiquitous HTML5 web technology without having to dig deep into the technology themselves. The service can be used for one shot generation of an app for a growing amount of platforms at no cost, or through a low cost subscription model for managed hosting. Updates to apps do not have to go through a costly and unpredictable process at a third party but can be delivered instantly to the user over the secure channel. Open source apps can use the entire service at no cost.

5apps is backed financially by NLnet foundation that was instrumental in launching the internet in Europe in the eighties. "The problems in this area really started appearing on our radar when open source developers came to us expressing well-justified frustration as their apps were refused by Apple for merely using web technologies in them", says Michiel Leenaars, director of Strategy at NLnet. "We felt that was completely unhealthy, and that the market badly needed strong alternatives. The solution that 5apps is now able to provide completely routes around that problem, and just works everywhere where HTML5 does - which is pretty much everywhere these days."