Palm Opens Its Own App Store, A New OS Might Follow

Naming for mobile applications stores is getting tight these days with just about every developer opening their own “App Store”, “Market”, or “Application Center". So when Palm decided to join the party it was forced to settle on “Software Store”.

Teaming with app distributor PocketGear, Palm's new software store already features 5,000 apps & games and more than 1,000 free apps. The software store is supported on more than 25 Palm devices, from the Centro to the Treo Pro. Palm also says they currently have more than 1500 developers developing apps.

For developers looking to get in on the action Palm has setup the Developers Guide, which provides details on setting up your account and listing your your apps. According to the overview PocketGear.com retains 40% of the revenue plus any transaction fees in return for the processing of credit card, online, fax, and phone orders.

The new software store might be big news for Palm although that might not be the biggest news we see from them. According to Peter Burrows at Business Week, On Jan. 8 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Palm will unveil a new operating system, code-named Nova, as well as the first of a family of products that will run on it.

Details of Palm's plans are a bit sketchy at the moment with only a few speculative guesses hitting the streets. The Business Week article says, "John Rubinstein, Palm's executive chairman in charge of product development, and others say the goal is to create products that bridge the gap between Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry devices, oriented to work and e-mail, and Apple's iPhone, oriented to fun."

What exactly that means is anyone's guess. Business Week says executives won't be specific about Nova however they make it clear that Palm is not looking to go toe-to-toe with the iPhone or BlackBerry. The general idea is said to be the creation of a platform that's flexible enough to support a wide range of customer desires.

I guess we'll just have to wait until CES to see exactly what Palm has up their sleeve. For now users wanting to checkout the new software store can do so by downloading the free software that corresponds to their current OS. For Windows Mobile users click here, Palm Os user click here. You'll also receive 25% OFF your first download when you enter coupon code SHOPMOBILE at checkout.