Last September, word broke that Amazon intended on launching its own Android App Marketplace.
It was a weird rumor to process. On the one hand, Amazon doesn’t do anything without a reason. Look at the Kindle: what seemed, at first, to be a niche has become the biggest and most ubiquitous e-book store on Earth, upending the traditional publishing model. Even the iPad couldn’t kill Kindle: in fact, if anything, the Kindle’s only become bigger since the iPad’s debut.
So when Amazon announced their own Android App Market, it was obvious they had some sort of plan besides just fragmenting the Android ecosystem even further. Amazon was clearly gunning to appeal to developers, offering whatever was greater: 70% of the purchase price or 20% of the “List Price.” In addition, Amazon was even offering to promote Amazon Android apps on their site.
At the time, I speculated that Amazon’s intention was to either release an Android tablet of their own sometime soon, or make themselves available for all Android devices (even the ones who aren’t paying Google Android licensing fees, and are therefore unable to deploy the Android Market on their devices).
Time will certainly tell, but it looks like that time will be coming sooner rather than later: according to Business Insider, Amazon Appstore for Android will be launching this month.That seems like curious timing, coming as it does so soon after the iPad 2’s debut. Could the Amazon Android Appstore just be one part of the puzzle? Is it possible that we’ll see an Amazon Android tablet in March as well?
For right now, only Amazon knows. Even if they don’t launch a tablet, though, there will be one cool new benefit of the Amazon Android Appstore: Amazon will apparently allow customers to preload their Android devices with software before it even ships out to them.
Read more at Business Insider
