“Now, Amazon isn’t the only company that’s making alternative Android App Stores — Verizon is also doing one of its own, and there will surely be more to follow. But Amazon is in a position to establish itself as the de facto non-Google App Store — and that could prove to be very important. As Kevin Marks wrote recently (and we discussed further), Android is going to increasingly fragment into flavors that aren’t as closely tied to Google, and we’ll start seeing more alternative versions of the core ‘Google Apps’. Amazon’s App Store would fit in nicely as one part of this alternative suite. This will also bring pricing battles over the same applications into the equation (which hasn’t really been possible when app distribution is monopolized by a single storefront). And, yes, it could lead to some user confusion, though Amazon has a strong incentive to keep this as straightforward as it can.” - × × ×