Qualcomm tackles mobile Internet retail with new Plaza service

Qualcomm Incorporated has announced an addition to it’s Plaza suite - The Plaza Retail solution. This has been designed to ensure that anyone selling applications can guarantee an easy-to-understand process that works exactly the same across a multitude of devices.

Wait, wait, wait - go back a step. What’s Plaza?

Plaza was launched last year, and was designed to be a platform-agnostic method for delivering widgets/applications. The idea was that Plaza can run on any device, on any network - so if a developer creates an app for Plaza, they can reach any customer. Targeted advertising built into the platform is the pay-off for the operators, generating extra revenue.

So, back to Plaza Retail: it’s aimed mostly at operators. There are a lot of application stores around at the moment, and most of them only support the payment methods that are suitable for a particular OS or device. The aim of Plaza Retail is to ensure that anyone can pay for an app/widget with the method that best suits them - thereby increasing their likeliness to purchase.

At the moment, the merchandizing system supports Java, BREW, Flash and Blackberry. Android, Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian and LiMo are on their way.

For more details about the way the new service will work, check out the release here.

From the release:

“Consumer expectation is defining the market for mobile content, and in order to remain competitive and contain costs as complexity increases, operators and device manufacturers will need to deliver more than just an application store,” said Arvin Chander, vice president and general manager of Plaza Retail. “Success in this market will be dictated by delivering mobile retail experiences across multiple platforms and networks, backed by a healthy ecosystem of publishers with an automated, transparent supply chain.”

What we think?

The difficulties inherent in actually converting mobile browsers in to mobile payments are still a thorn in the side of anyone trying to sell anything on the mobile Internet. It’s great that Qualcomm are pushing this for mobile apps, but it needs to be applied to much more than that. Any payment made for any reason over the mobile Web has challenges to overcome, whether it’s for content, apps or just a money transfer. Standardising the processes would go a long way towards making people more willing to spend over the mobile Web.