App stores can be overwhelming. Well-curated browsing experiences are lacking in both Apple and Google’s marketplaces. Aside from reviews, which tend to be unreliable, there’s no way to know if you’re about to download a winner or a dud.
VMFive, a Taipei-based startup established in May 2014, is looking to ease the world’s app store woes. It’s flagship product, AdPlay, lets people demo an app before downloading it to their phones.
AdPlay snatches apps directly from app stores and runs them in them in the cloud, where they’re optimized for a wide range of mobile devices. When somebody clicks on an AdPlay supported demo, a rudimentary version of the app will appear in an HTML5 browser, where it’s streamed directly to the user.
Tech in Asia tried out an AdPlay-supported demo of Cut the Rope from VMFive’s offices. While the demo doesn’t feel the same as an actual native app, it’s close enough. UI is responsive and lag is minimal.
VMFive was founded by Sam Ding, who conceived of the technology while completing his PhD at National Tsing Hua University in Taipei. Shawn Li and Owen Lo joined him as co-founders after departing from Gogolook, which was acquired by Naver in December 2013. Dominic Tu, a former sales director at Nokia later joined the company to lead business development as chief revenue officer.
AdPlay’s premise is not new – in fact, many US-based startups have been developing technology for the exact same thing. App.io, which has raised over US$2 million to date, mNectar, which has secured over US$9 million, and Voxel, which has raised US$1.3 million, are each wooing app developers and major companies with app virtualization technology. In India, AppSurfer has carved out its own turf for this market.
While VMFive claims that it can handle graphic-heavy games better than its US analogs, it’s true competitive advantage likely lies in its geography. All of these companies offer a product that consumers can touch with their hands, but the bulk of their customers will be ad networks who lease their technology in hopes of boosting download numbers for clients.
Ad sales, meanwhile, is often a regional business. In order to form relationships with clients, knowledgeable staff need to be on the ground making phone calls and setting up coffee dates. While VMFive might not win Google Play or MoPub as as a client, East Asian ad networks, telecoms, and third-party Android app stores will make up a sizeable potential client base.
“It is difficult for us to talk to Google and ask them to adopt us, because their scale is so huge. So we just focus on ad agencies,” says Tu.
The company claims it has been running AdPlay in a trial capacity with potential clients in Japan, Taiwan, and mainland China. Specifically, the company announced a partnership with Japan’s D2C, a Dentsu-affiliated ad network with offices in Tokyo and Taipei. They also said that AdPlay is accessible to a small number of users through “one of China’s top three Android app stores.”
China perhaps marks the best opportunity for VMFive to grow, thanks to the country’s highly fragmented app store market. Tu says that the Taiwan team’s shared language makes communication with Chinese partners easier, but the market is still difficult to navigate.
“When we’re in China we need to adapt to their business models, and to the way they do scheduling. They [approach these matters] from a very different place. But when we talk with companies in Taiwan or Japan, they’re pretty straightforward. They are the customers, so if they have different types of localization requirements, we just adopt.”
VMFive claims it is self-funded, though the company has continuously been in talks with investors.
This post Taiwan’s VMFive lets you demo apps before downloading them appeared first on Tech in Asia.
Taiwan’s VMFive lets you demo apps before downloading them
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