make programs for Windows desktop PCs look and behave more like mobile apps. Hundreds of free apps and games are now available through the Pokki app store, giving PC users one-click access to Facebook, Gmail, Instagram (through an app called Instagrille), and Twitter (Tweeki). As part of its million-user announcement, SweetLabs says Angry Birds, Pinterest, and Pandora apps are also now available on via its Pokki platform.
The company says its Pokki platform also has undergone a major update that includes a new menu for discovering, organizing, and launching apps, along with an improved notification process for app updates.
In this era of smartphones and mobile computing, the aspect that makes this particularly ambitious is that SweetLabs sees a strategic opportunity to challenge Microsoft’s longtime dominance by offering an alternative to the standard Windows way of managing applications. That would have seemed like folly five or 10 years ago.
Yet in the Pokki blog, SweetLabs co-founder and CEO Darrius Thompson says the PC is in desperate need of a makeover. Microsoft itself is working on such a makeover in the form of Windows 8, which is designed for use across desktops, laptops, phones, and tablets. But Thompson says Pokki represents a better bridge from the traditional Windows desktop of the old world to the kind of modern app experience that Apple and Android have established.
“With Windows 8 around the corner, and Microsoft set to force a touch OS onto mainstream PC users (who really want to point, click, and type),” Thompson writes, “we feel it’s a more critical time than ever to prove that you can enjoy apps and a modern app experience without throwing out your monitor, keyboard, and mouse.”
PC users can download Pokki for free at Pokki.com, and the platform runs on top of Windows 8, 7, Vista, and XP. (The company says its next major product release will be a Pokki beta for Mac.) The big test, though, is coming this fall. If Pokki’s user base continues to double every month, SweetLabs will be closing in on 4 million monthly active users by late October, when Microsoft has scheduled the general release of the Windows 8 OS.
So the key question is whether SweetLabs will be able to sustain its exponential growth after Halloween. It seems likely that would depend more on whether PC users reject Windows 8 than how many embrace the Pokki platform. Still, it could prove to be a watershed for desktop users. In his SweetLabs’ blog, CEO Thompson points to a YouTube video, “How Real People Will Use Windows 8,” in which a befuddled, gray-haired user searches in vain for a Windows 8 start menu, saying, “We might be here all day if I’m trying to figure this out.”
