Palm's Software Store offers a catalog in excess of 5,000 software titles, including games, which Palm users can buy and download on their mobile devices. In its previous incarnation, Palm owners needed to download an app or game to a computer, and then transfer the software from the computer to the mobile device.

Palm OS and Windows Mobile

Palm's mobile store supports more than 25 Palm devices, including the Centro and Treo Pro, and about 20 percent of the available titles are free. Applications are available for both the current Palm OS and Palm devices that run Windows Mobile. To access the store, a Palm user must install free mobile-store software on the device.

App stores for mobile devices are all the rage. Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod is the best known, but Android-based phones have a marketplace for third-party software, and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is expected to launch one in the first quarter of 2009.

Michael Gartenberg, vice president for consumer strategy at Jupitermedia, said Apple showed with its App Store that "a direct channel between third-party developers and the consumer is a good thing." He added that the growing number of direct-channel stores will be the scene of a "huge battle in 2009" as the various platforms try to attract developers and the best applications.

Gartenberg predicted that the apps available in these stores will increasingly factor into consumers' decisions when buying a new mobile device.

The Approaching Nova

The mobile version of its Software Store could help Palm reposition itself. Palm is hoping to regain at least some of its reputation for innovation as it tries to survive in a highly competitive market where Apple, RIM and Android-based devices are key leaders.

The maker of the original Palm PDA and the Treo smartphone, Palm has fallen behind its competitors in recent years. Earlier this month, the company said its sales would be half what analysts were projecting for the quarter, and it has laid off about 10 percent of its workforce.

Because of this need to reposition itself, curiosity is running high among Palm watchers about what the company's new, Linux -based Nova OS will offer when it is shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The OS is expected to be accompanied by the first in a family of related products, and an expansion of the Palm Software Store to include Nova-based apps and games would not be a surprise.

Some observers have speculated that Nova will be designed as more of an intelligent assistant, such as informing you of weather reports in a city that your calendar indicates is on your travel itinerary. Others suggest it will take the mobile Internet to new levels.