I’m quoted in a PC World piece about how apps will change the nature of desktop software. I had a long conversation with the author, Jared Newman, about how OfficeDrop’s apps, both our smartphone scanner apps and our mac desktop scanner app, ScanDrop, are dramatically changing how we distribute our SaaS product.
The article’s thesis is spot on:
Not surprisingly, many developers are enthusiastic about the easy distribution and streamlined billing that app stores provide, yet these stores also introduce challenges–some that are unique to desktops, and others that have plagued smartphones since the dawn of the iPhone App Store.
I spoke with Jared for a while about how we were wrong about how customers wanted to use our service. They actually want to download and install apps, not use the web. We were off by 100%.
The soon to be famous 
Healy Jones quote is:
Healy Jones, vice president of marketing for OfficeDrop, noticed this shift away from the Web immediately after his company released mobile and desktop apps for its document-scanning service.
OfficeDrop, which provides searchable cloud storage, says that it sees seven times more user engagement through its apps than it does through the Web browser, Jones notes. Since releasing its first apps in 2011, OfficeDrop’s user base has grown from 7000 users to 140,000 users.
“We had a thesis that people did not want to install software; that the cloud meant that people could use a browser to interact with software and would never have to install anything. We were completely wrong,” Jones says. “People love installing software.”
Obviously I’m really bullish on apps. That’s also why I’m very bullish on tablets (and part of the reason OfficeDrop recently released an Android tablet version of our app.) Apps are how people want to interact with software. I’m happy people like HTML 5, but if it isn’t installed it’s not gonna grow as well as an app.