The Mac App Store will be most helpful to the small unestablished developers, since it will alleviate things like marketing, billing, support, etc. Bigger more

The Mac App Store will be most helpful to the small unestablished developers, since it will alleviate things like marketing, billing, support, etc. Bigger more established developers (like Panic, Bare Bones Software, Delicious Monster, The Iconfactory, The Omni Group, just to name a few) have already solved these problems (not in perpetuity and not without limit, of course). I don't think that companies like these are going to place the fate of their best-selling software in Apple's hands for the relatively small gains the Mac App Store will provide them. That is not to say that I think they'll stay out of the Mac App Store either, it's just to say that it won't be Mac App Store exclusive. I expect most of them to "try out" the Mac App Store with new software releases of smaller scope, rather than retrofit their best-selling software and offer them exclusively on Mac App Store, with the straightjacket that comes with it. Where they go from there will depend on the results of the Mac App Store. They won't be forced to use it for their key software, so they won't if it doesn't suit their needs. I think the Mac App Store is going to be an absolutely enormous runaway success. But not because you can find already established and popular software on there.