Understanding the Design of App Stores in the IIoT

App stores represent an already established concept for distributing software-intensive solutions that complementary extend the value of digital platforms. In the context of industrial digital platforms in the IIoT domain, the benefits of app stores are not yet fully understood or shared by the majority of platform users. This article contributes to the instantiation of app stores in digital industrial platforms using empirical data to reveal the functionalities expected from an industrial app store by IIoT platform users on the one hand and IIoT platform providers on the other. The increased understanding of the app stores integrated in IIoT platforms provides a design-oriented gain in knowledge for research and practice. Based on an empirical survey, we analyze which functionalities of app stores are demanded by IIoT platform users. This enables us to formulate five propositions for adapting app stores for IIoT to increase their success in this domain.