Chicago (IL) - Google has finally delivered, sort of. In accordance with public promises
made by the Android Market chief in early January, users of
T-Mobile's G1 Android in the U.S. will finally be able to purchase
commercial applications for their smartphone over-the-air. Although
other countries have yet to support what appears to be
a controlled roll-out of the service, the move nevertheless
marks an important milestone for Google's application store that, so far, has been carrying only free applications.

As Google promised
last week, paid applications are finally coming to Android-powered
cellphones, albeit with a few caveats. Unlike Apple's App Store that
hit all supported markets simultaneously with both free and paid
applications, Google opted for a staged roll-out of paid applications
into its app store.

The search giant has confirmed that T-Mobile
G1 users in the U.S. will get paid applications first, soon to be
followed by more countries. "Once the service is enabled on their
devices," said Google, "T-Mobile G1 users will be able to see the
priced apps immediately without the need to reboot."

With this update, Google has delivered on the promise made by Android Market manager, Eric Chu, who announced last month
that the app store will support priced applications "starting
early Q1 2009." He also announced a new country-targeting feature of
Android Market that allows developers to target their applications for
select countries supported by the platform -- meaning all
Android applications might not be available across all
territories.

Phased roll-out

According to Chu's comments, the domestic launch of
paid applications on Android Market should be followed by the U.K. roll-out -- scheduled for the end of this month. Users in Germany,
Austria, The Netherlands, France, Italy and Spain will get a localized
Android Market with paid applications support later in the quarter (before March 31).
Google also promised to announce support for developers in additional
countries by the end of the first quarter. Android Market's free
applications became available to
users in Australia as of February 15th, 2009, while users in Singapore
will get it "in the coming weeks."

Launch of paid applications
will initially miss some Android Market territories entirely. The
search giant argues this is because there's a need to co-ordinate with Google
Checkout -- the company's own payment and billing mechanism -- on a
country-by-county basis. As such, it is only logical for them to address the
biggest markets first. Google was the first to react to the arrival of
Apple's iPhone App Store that opened for
business last July. Since that time, developers have rushed to create
over 20,000 iPhone applications that have amassed well over 300
million downloads (as of last month).

70:30 deal

Both Google's Android Market
and Apple's App Store offer similar terms for developers: programmers get 70 percent of
the total revenue, while the store owner keeps 30
percent. Unlike Apple, who keeps its 30 percent cut entirely to itself
to run the service, micropayment gateway, file hosting and marketing,
Google is handing the vast majority of its 30 percent share over to carriers.
Some industry watchers are not entirely happy with such practices. The media has rightfully labeled them as an Android carrier tax.

Conclusion

Whereas some industry watchers
deem the announcement as long overdue, it reminds us that Apple's iPhone App Store supported both paid and free applications across
all territories from day one, some eight months ago.
And despite the fact that Android has not yet reached a critical mass of
users (which will delay success of the Android Market as a consequence),
e-commerce support in the Android Market might motivate more developers to
start earning money by making and selling their applications for Androids rather than iPhones.

PAID APPLICATIONS ARRIVE for T-MOBILE's G1
U.S. users of T-Mobile's G1 cellphone will be able to see paid applications on their smartphone as soon as Google enables them, and without the need to reboot the device. Paid Android applications will later arrive to users in the UK, and then on to other supported countries, including Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and others.