I was just reading a GigaOM article noting the incredible growth in the mobile app market – 1 million mobile apps and counting.  Importantly, these mobile apps are generating real revenues – Gartner expects mobile apps to bring in $15 billion in revenue this year, while Juniper Research believes app revenues could hit $32 billion by 2015.

I couldn’t help thinking, “It’s good to be a mobile application developer these days.”

At a time when consumers (and enterprises) focus on metrics like ‘number of apps in the marketplace’ it’s easy to understand why mobile operating systems and mobile development platforms are courting app developers with so much attention and so many resources.

Interestingly, many tech industry heavyweights have used acquisitions of these application development platforms as opportunities to acquire important developer mindshare and capabilities.  Recent transactions include Salesforce’s acquisition of Heroku, Adobe’s acquisition of Nitobi (PhoneGap), Motorola’s acquisition of RhoMobile and Facebook’s acquisition of Strobe.

I’m sure we will see more transactions in the application development platform space as the major web technology incumbents look to stake out or shore up their positions in the mobile app economy.

Additionally, we’re seeing some acquisitions among the mobile app development platforms (e.g, Appcelerater’s acquisitions of Particle Code and Aptana) and web services as well (e.g., UrbanAirship’s acquisition of SimpleGeo) as they look to extend their own value propositions to the developers.

All this got me thinking that it would be helpful to share a visual of the Application Development Ecosystem that we at Architect Partners use in our discussions with various industry players.  We highlight many (not all) of the key players.

So here you go.  Any and all comments are appreciated.

Shopping is at the early stages of profound change.  Our presentation below tackles “The Evolution of Shopping.”   We highlight some of the key drivers of these changes, offer a framework to help understand who fits where in a very complicated ecosystem and feature some of the most innovative companies making things happen.

We, like many, are constantly deluged with the latest headlines from information sources like The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Bloomberg and GigaOM.  What we’ve attempted to do with The Evolution of Shopping is provide some context to the headlines.

We stepped back to the fundamentals to help us understand the innovation we’re seeing.  We’ve mapped how products are bought and sold as a seven step process.  From a retailer’s perspective these are 1) attract customers, 2) help them learn, 3) convert them to purchasers, 4) suggest additional purchases, 5) help them pay, 6) encourage and manage social signals and finally 7) encouraging repeat purchases.  We then mapped over 300 companies against this framework.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, annual U.S. retail sales exceed $4 trillion.  Over time, much of this spending, not to mention global retail spending, is likely to be influenced by this evolution.  Incumbent suppliers to retailers and brands such as SAP, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, NCR, Epicor, Visa, Mastercard, American Express and many others have major stakes in the outcome and are beginning to see emerging competition from a new set of competitors such as eBay, Amazon, Salesforce.com, Google and Apple.  Scores of young emerging companies are also likely to be important disrupters.

Marquee M&A transactions have already occurred within this area.  We’d highlight eBay’s M&A appetite which has included the acquisitions of Hunch, Zong, Magento, WHERE and GSI Commerce for a total of over $3 billion just in the past 12 months.  Also, the purchase of radian6 by Salesforce.com is another transaction with very interesting ramifications.

As we enter the holiday shopping season we see continued tangible signs of this evolution.  According to IBM’s Cyber Monday Report 2011, on-line shopping continues to show strong growth, up 33% from 2010.  Also, mobile device-initiated purchases are beginning to become meaningful, representing 6.6% of Cyber Monday 2011 sales.

Please see The Evolution of Shopping below:

Walmart VUDU and Amazon Kindle released websites that mimic the look, feel and user experience of the now ubiquitous downloaded app.  These sites are built using the new, much talked about HTML5 standard, are readily accessible using Apple’s Safari browser and are optimized for use on the iPad.  Access to these site can also be converted into a simple home screen icon with just two clicks,  visually looking just like all your other downloaded apps.

The motivation? Avoiding Apple’s iTunes Store approval process and mandated 30% share of revenue. This is the first time major brands have so explicitly challenged Apple’s control.

Another big benefit.  Build once, run on any device.  These HTML5 websites can be readily accessed from any PC, tablet or mobile device from any manufacturer without expensive and time consuming adaptations.

This is the first shot in a long war.