Question of the Day: From whom do you buy your software?

With today’s announcement from PocketGear that they have acquired Handango, two of the major competing mobile software distributors have come under one brand. This eliminates one of the major players in the game of electronic software distributors, leaving only PocketGear, Mobihand and Handmark, that I can name off the top of my head.

Each of these three offer a venue for developers, charging a percentage of each sale in exchange for a developer having a potentially global marketplace. Over the years, these percentages have grown, with them sometimes reaching near 50 percent of the application price.

Of course, then there is the iTunes App Store. The ONLY (approved, that is) electronic software provider for the iPhone and iPod Touch. They charge a percentage as well, taking nearly 30 percent of the proceeds for an application.

We can’t dismiss that we are starting to see a LOT of individual application stores starting to appear. We have the Windows Mobile Marketplace, we App World for Blackberry, the Ovi Store, and so on. Each of these are attempts to capitalize on the success of the iTunes App Store.

Finally, you have the option, in most cases anyway, of buying direct from the developer’s site. This is a great way to reward the developer, as there is no corporation taking a percentage of the profits for an application that they don’t have any real stakes in.

In the past, I’ve bought from a number of different sources including PocketGear / PalmGear, Mobihand (the JAMM Store), Handango and individual developers. Buying direct from the individual developers is a great way to go when the opportunity arises, but sometimes the sales offered by the app stores is just too tempting. After all, even though I want to reward the developers, I have to watch out for my pocket book’s best interests as well.

So to wrap it up, fellow JAMMers, where do you buy your software?  Hit the comments and let us know!

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