Ok, So Palm Isn't Paying App Developers? 3

This could get messy quick. Just two days ago TechCrunch caught up with the developers of the CitySourced, pressing them for information on how much Palm was paying them to develop a webOS version of their application. They would not comment ‘how much’ Palm was paying them (if they were at all), only to say that “They didn’t pay us $500,000... it’s under $500,000.” While not an express admission of being paid, it did set the Palm blogosphere afire, though the response was generally positive (e.g. I’d rather they pay for good apps than we wallow in crap apps).

But there’s a catch. John Paczkowski of All Things D ran through his phone tree and contacted a source at Palm and people “in a position to know” and none reported any knowledge of there being any sort of investments from Palm to developers. Even none of the various app developers that Paczkowski spoke to admitted to Palm approaching them for payment.

And it turns out that it is indeed true, Palm did not pay for the development of CitySourced. As reported at Macworld.com, Palm has signed on as a partner with the FreedomSpeaks Foundation, the non-profit group behind the development of CitySourced (and a spin-off of the for-profit FreedomSpeaks corporation). In exchange for the undisclosed investment in the foundation, Palm will get to promote its smartphones at events where the FreedomSpeaks Foundation is out promoting citizen involvement in the government. It is worth noting that Palm isn’t exactly rolling in money, so it’s not likely that the investment amount from Palm was huge (like they said, less than $500,000). Either way, helping to promote more participation in the electoral process is a good thing in our book.

We do have to report that an anonymous tipster informed us that Palm had commissioned another app that's coming to the App Catalog eventually. Grain of salt there, of course, but either way we're starting to think this whole thing is a tempest in a teapot.