Following the news in June that the US Supreme Court decided to hear the ongoing antitrust case of Apple v Pepper, software developer groups have been helping publicize what promises to be a pivotal case on determining application ownership in the future.

Charlotte Dunlap, Principal Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her concerns on how the outcome of this court case could impact broader issues pertaining to software developers’ ongoing role in providing the innovation behind mobile and cloud apps:

‘‘The newly pending US Supreme Court case which will determine whether Apple’s iOS App Store distribution model represents an anti-competitive monopoly could have far-reaching ramifications among software developers, whose collective brain-trust is already at a premium and in great shortage.

‘‘Indirectly but equally important will be the court’s ability to help the industry validate the critical role of the technologists and developers in driving the cloud and mobile revolution (arguably the economy’s greatest asset currently). The court case illustrates a larger issue which is the lack of qualified technical expertise available to meet the insatiable demand for innovation in a fast moving industry which involves big data and real-time analytics.

‘‘According to the App Association, there are currently 500,000 open technology job requisitions which companies are struggling to fill, including software programmers and data scientists.

‘‘A win for Apple will only help steer students away from computer science degrees. Apple reportedly made $11 billion last year solely in App Store commissions, illustrating the David and Goliath scenario of this court case when considering the greed behind Corporate America versus overextended independent software developers.’’