LiMo Foundation Blog

Palm's recent announcements around the openness of their Application Developer Model did not garner as much attention as the other stories about Application Developers not making much money on Application Stores, despite the hype. However, in the current climate of closed Application Stores, Palm's plan is quite significant:

(1) Palm will allow developers to distribute their applications via a Web link (via Palm), that directly installs the Application to the device without going through the App Store

(2) No $99 developer fee for Apps that are released as open source

(3) Opening up of analytical data to developers, and

(4) No Palm review of applications that are published.

In today's climate of closed Application Stores, Palm's announcement is very significant – development and SDKs are open, but platforms still control the deployment of applications. This can be very controlled, as in the case of Apple, and not so rigid, as on Google Android. Palm has taken quite a few steps ahead with web distribution of applications and access to analytical data.

Is this the future for all Application Stores? The answer lies in how large an ecosystem Palm can drive with this approach. While Palm's expertise in building ecosystems is well known, the landscape has changed significantly, and Palm is still working on the chicken-and-egg problem of getting enough devices out in the market to sustain developer momentum.

The application distribution is not completely open yet – the developer submits the App to Palm, and Palm publishes a link that can be used on a web page to distribute the Application. However, it is a step in the positive direction and it is a sign of things to come, and if Palm succeeds, others will have to follow.