Android Marketplace now supporting commercial apps

Google has announced that it is now accepting commercial apps on the Android Marketplace.

Currently only open to US and UK developers – with Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France and Spain planned to launch ‘later this quarter’ – quite when end-users will be able to download the apps is currently unclear. Enabled by the most recent RC33 update, the official Android blog says that US users will be ‘available to end users in the US starting next week’ – but only mentions ‘in the coming months’ for other countries.

The Californian giant has also quietly made an about-turn on the Market’s monetisation system. It had previously said that billing would be carried out by the individual carriers, which would have lead to a much more convoluted system than Apple’s App Store. It has now announced, however, that Google Checkout will serve as the payment and billing mechanism for Android Market.

Further information on the new Android Market can be found here.