Palm Almost Ready to Start App Catalog Beta: Wait! Almost? Beta? When Will Pre Apps be Available?

As a non-Palm Pre owner, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this item from the Palm Developer Network blog…

Bring Us Your Apps, and Sell Them, Too

After reading this openning sentence…

Submit your webOS applications today for the Palm App Catalog e-commerce beta starting in mid-September

…I thought it might mean that the Palm Pre would allow in-app purchases (game levels, etc.). But, after reading a bit more, that didn’t seem to be the case. Then, it occurred to me, having been available since June 6 (over two months ago), the Palm Pre still doesn’t have apps other than what was available at launch time…

Palm Pre Mobile apps

That can’t be true, can it? 18 apps? And, the Palm App Catalog **BETA** starts in mid-September? Assuming the Palm Pre App Catalog goes into production before the holiday season, Palm will have burnt through a good chunk of their cash reserves. The last estimate I read said that Palm has enough cash to operate for about 12 months. They will have a bit over a half-year of cash to burn if the App store launches before the end of 2009. The Palm Pre hardware doesn’t appear to be selling as well as expected. So, Palm better have a good second act to show before their cash runs out.

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.