Palm's Software Store impresses, but too little to save it
Published: 17 December, 2008
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and a range of operators promised software stores to boost user and developer support for their mobile web platforms. Now Palm has jumped on the bandwagon, with an impressive looking debut, that - as it seeks to survive the wait for its new operating system - is likely to have come too late to make a major impact.
The Palm Software Store allows users to download applications to devices running both its favored operating systems, its own and Windows Mobile - so the company has actually leapt ahead of Microsoft itself, which is said to be planning its own mobile storefront, Skyfront, for 2009. The Palm offering opens with over 5,000 applications, more than 20% of them free, which puts it well ahead of Android Market, with 10 times the number of programs - but the struggling company is unlikely to generate half the momentum that Market does, with the power of the Google marketing machine behind it.
Android developers may only have one phone to play with so far, but they have the promise of large numbers of new cellphones from different vendors appearing over the course of next year, while the Palm ecosystem is based around a declining Treo range, a popular but low margin Centro, and the uncertain prospects for the new Linux-based software platform, Nova, which will be unveiled at the CES show next month and appear in smartphones in the heart of the downturn, in mid-2009. And next year, there is likely to be added competition for developer attention from a Symbian store, plus Microsoft's own Windows activities.
The apps in the new store come from more than 1,500 developers, and include some big names like Facebook, Pac-Man, Tetris and Encyclopedia Britannica. As in the App Store, there is a heavy emphasis on games.
The store (available at http://software.palm.com/appstore) is powered by PalmGear.com, a well established partner, and PocketGear, a direct-to-consumer platform spun off this year from Motricity.
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