It looks like PayPal will be the only payment system for applications that come to the RIM Application Storefront when it is released. According to Jack Stephensen of PayPal all purchases in the storefront will go through PayPal’s system. I can’t say whether that is a good thing or a bad thing since I am partial to PayPal. On the other hand I know a bunch of developers who would have preferred Google Checkouts lower transaction fees but as Luciano pointed out to me Google Checkout is not as international as Paypal.
So what do you think?
DavidB Not Registered
Posted: January 20, 2009 at 8:46 AM EST from my BlackBerry 9530
As a user of paypal, I say yay!
Jeff Not Registered
Posted: January 20, 2009 at 9:07 AM EST
PayPal is really a great choice for both sides of the equation. It is easy to set up, reliable and has a large worldwide user base already. PayPal also has a feature called Micropayments which enable vendors who frequently have transactions under $12 to move to an alternate payment calculation ($0.05 + 5%) versus the standard ($0.30 + 2.9%) on the first tier of volume. This actually makes PayPal the cheapest checkout system out there if you meet the aforementioned criteria.
I’m sure RIM will offer alternate payment systems at some point in the future, but they can be difficult and time consuming to implement on the kind of scale they are going to be dealing with, so I think PayPal is a great place to start.