Palm Opening up E-Commerce Beta for App Catalog - for-pay Apps in September

If you're a developer but have held off submitting to the App Catalog because you want to charge for your App and didn't know when Palm would implement that - take heed.  Palm wants you to submit your app for consideration now for the "Palm App Catalog e-commerce beta program," which they say will open in Mid-September.

Developers get 70% of the retail price (less taxes), Palm gets 30%. Palm says that customers will be able to "easily purchase" with Visa and Mastercard, more details coming soon.  Something under 70% of gross revenues -- depending on taxes -- sounds like a decent enough deal for most developers.  It's the same that Apple takes - more or less - and while it might have been nice to see Palm try to beat Apple there, servers don't pay for themselves.  Palm taking your credit card instead of letting carriers muck the system up: priceless.

More details should be forthcoming at the Palm Developer Network Blog, but not just yet - for now you can check out the full press release.

Update: Palm's added more details

• Developers charge a 1-time download fee (no recurring charges then?)
• United States ONLY to start. BOO.
• Still Beta, so they're being slightly more stringent now about what they're taking than they will be for the "Fall" full launch

So - Palm takes 30%, carriers are kept out of the loop, and for-pay apps are coming in mid-September.  We like it - what do you think?