School Taps into Mobile Trend

50nghv44jfk

Chang Qiaoming was not sure what he wanted to do with his life until the day he discovered Apple's iPhone.
Shortly after that, the 26-year-old from Hunan province quit his job as a sales representative for a semiconductor company, scraped together a couple of thousand dollars and searched for a place where he could learn how to develop applications for the iPhone.
"I want to be an independent iPhone application developer," Chang said. "It's a trend. More and more companies will pay attention to this market. I want to be an expert in this area and earn a lot of money."
In the West, developers of programs for the iPhone have earned big bucks selling thousands of copies of games and other software via Apple's App Store.
Now,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a growing number of tech-savvy Chinese are also hoping to hit the iPhone jackpot by developing a golden application that could be downloaded tens of thousands of times and earn tens of thousands of dollars.
But there is one problem: Many lack the talent needed to develop software for the iPhone, which is where Wang Bo comes in.
Wang is the founder of iBokan Wisdom, China's first iPhone application training school.
In the United States, dozens of such classes have emerged. At Stanford University, an undergraduate course on writing iPhone programs attracted 150 students for only 50 spots when it was launched last fall.
Wang, who also runs Bokan Technologies, an iPhone application development company that has created several top-selling applications on the iTunes Application Store, is seeing equally high enrollment in his school located in a highrise in Haidian district.
Since he founded iBokan Wisdom in August, classes have been filling up with students with diverse backgrounds - a television producer, several graphic designers, a high school track and field star, an undergraduate science major.
"Most of them can go to the job market and find a job right now," Wang said. "It is in high demand."
China Unicom's official launch of Apple's smartphone in October has piqued interest among both local and foreign companies aiming to sell applications on the Chinese iTunes Application Store.
Demand for skilled mobile software writers is expanding further as companies ranging from handset manufacturers, like Nokia,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], to telecom operators,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], such as China Mobile, launch online application stores of their own.
Companies from the US and Europe are also outsourcing mobile program development to China to take advantage of lower labor costs.
"From the cost point of view,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], China makes a lot of sense," William Wei, founder of New York-based Mobile Apps Express, said during on a business trip to Beijing to scout talent for his company.
"But our market and our revenue stream is still from the US."
Despite the growth potential in China, domestic and foreign application developers say they will continue, at least for the short term, to also focus on creating applications for Western markets.
"That is where the money is," Wang said. "And in China you don't have many iPhones."
Pirated mobile phone applications are rife on the Chinese Internet, which means domestic users are less likely to pay for software that they can find elsewhere for free.
"Two dollars is a lot for the average Chinese to pay," Wang said. "And if one Chinese downloads (an application),[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], it can be easily pirated, and it is over."
Chang still has several more months of studying to do before his training program at iBokan Wisdom is over.
He is in the midst of developing an application that will teach babies how to recognize objects, like fruits and animals. "The future is bright," Chang said. "It is worth my time and my money to learn this."