Motorola Announces Application Store and Ecosystem Partners for China

Well well, it seems that the Market application is not something that Google insists on being included in the Android OS for it’s licencees. Motorola is launching SHOP4APPS (or Zhi-Jian-Yuan, which means “Place for Apps Wisdom” in Chinese) in China for both paid and free Android(TM) applications. SHOP4APPS will be Motorola’s store for Android applications, which makes it easy to discover, purchase, and download applications designed to customize Android-based Motorola phones in China. In addition, Motorola announced a new feature on their Android handsets enabling users to customize their Android devices by selecting their own search provider.  Users will be able to select their search experience from a number of providers including Baidu and others, with whom Motorola has signed strategic agreements.

I am guessing Motorola is doing this to be able to sell smartphones through China Unicom… read below what China Unicom said:

“The ability to add applications and services is essential for people in China because increasingly we live our lives and express ourselves through our mobile phones,” said China Unicom. “We want phones to reflect our lifestyle and our choices, and the ability to pick our own search sites, our own chat services, our own games, and to craft our own mobile experience is helping China Unicom deliver on the promise of 3G.”

SHOP4APPS is an extremely flexible applications delivery platform. Some of the key features within SHOP4APPS include:

• Discover apps tailored for you. SHOP4APPS can be easily tailored to present the user with applications that will be most meaningful for them based on their existing preferences, region and carrier.
• Download or Purchase Once. Keep It Forever. Purchased apps get stored in your personal storage area called “My Locker,” making switching handsets or restoring applications seamless and easy.
• Promote your Innovation. For developers, SHOP4APPS is an easy and effective way to showcase, sell and distribute their applications for Android-based devices in China. SHOP4APPS offers developers an innovative set of resources, starting with tools for testing their applications, as well as marketing and promotional tools for marketing their applications to the end-user.

Of course all of this won’t stop tech savvy Chinese that root their phone to access the Android Market… unless firewalls take care of that 🙂

Source: Motorola Press Release