On hearing that Dixons Group, owners of UK tech retail giant PC World, was taking part in this year’s Intel Developer Forum, I was intrigued to say the least. Today, it all started to make sense: in the day two keynote, Renee James announced Dixons’ partnership with Intel to pre-install Intel’s AppUp Center on the netbooks it sells. This will start with all of their own brand Advent netbooks from 2011 and thereafter on “all relevant devices”.
As part of the promotion of its app store, Intel took over a shop front on San Francisco’s Forth Street, demoing netbooks running AppUp and giving us lucky blogger types a chance to hear from the men (yes, all men) behind the partner news.
Pre-installing app stores on its machines seems something of a sideways step for the Dixons group but Gary Hearns, senior category manager at the company stressed that he believes app stores are crucial to improving the netbook user’s experience. Dixons, however, sees it as a way to gather more information from its customers on how they are using their netbooks and “tapping into their unrecognised needs.”
One such need, Hearns believes, is for safe, educational apps for children. Parents, he believes, need reassurances about this to ensure that their children aren’t just “wasting time socialising online.” Education apps, he claims, will be big for developers and consumers alike.
Hearns also talked about the US-centric nature of the current apps market and how this could change. With more UK/European developers getting involved with programs such as AppUp, users in the region will have more local-language app options, particularly important for educational apps. From its own side, Dixons is creating a dual-branded Dixons/Intel store front for the pre-installed app store, ensuring prices in GBP and “genuine English.”
From November this year, we should see signs of the dual-branded app store online and instore at PC World.
Filed under: Dixons, Intel AppUp Developer Program, Intel Developer Forum, Netbooks Tagged: | appup, dixons, gary hearns, Intel AppUp Center
