Evolution of the Software Install

Since the Apple iPhone App Store is such a success, I wonder how this may translate into other areas. Instead of going to your local Best Buy or Amazon and buying a box with a CD in it. Why not have an App Store for your Operating System? This market would be much larger so more channels into this app store would be required. Imagine, you went to the app store for your O/S then selected try or buy. Then it would download and install. Easy. Depending on the agreement with this software vendor, it may be allowed that you can install this on any machine you own. So you would log into your other machine, and select from your library of purchased software and select install.

What if your machine breaks, the O/S is reinstalled? or you get a new machine. Login to the appstore and browse your library and install.

Get an offline backup and your done. Your recovery plan is ready to go. Wouldn’t that be nice.

Taking this one step further and have a bootable image on your Hard drive or some type of media, and have your O/S available on the app store as well. Instant desaster recovery plan, and perhaps a yearly rebuild with statistics of what apps you actually use to know if you should install it again.

Lets hope this is the evolution.