According to American Banker PayPal's has an exclusive deal to be
the sole payment service provider for the application store that
Research in M
is developing for its BlackBerry handheld devices.
When RIM opens its app store later this year, all purchases, including those customers
make with credit cards, will go through PayPal's system, according to Jack Stephensen, PayPal's senior vice president of strategy and new ventures.
The BlackBerry Application StoreFront is expected in March. Applications were accepted starting in December of last year. The BlackBerry App StoreFront gives developers 80 percent of
the revenue back for paid applications and 20 percent is kept to help
maintain and pay for the system.
The
BlackBerry Application StoreFront will support free applications, paid applications
and also monthly subscription billing or try-and-buy models. They plan to support
different types of billing
models and operate over wireless channels for downloading of
applications whether via a cellular networks or Wi-Fi.