Intel happy to stay behind the scenes with AppUp

The head of Intel's AppUp business has insisted that the company is happy to stay out of the spotlight with its software retail platform.

Peter Biddle, AppUp general manager of products and services, told reporters in San Francisco that retail partners, not Intel, should be featured on sites powered by AppUp.

Designed to offer online retail services for consumer PC users, AppUp serves as an application store and a platform for developers looking to port and sell software from mobile platforms. AppUp currently operates in more than 40 countries, often in partnership with other vendors.

Biddle said that for many of the application stores powered by AppUp, such as Dixon's KnowHow App Centre, Intel intentionally limits the amount of branding it presents.

Biddle explained that Intel would like to see AppUp as the backbone to smaller specialised application services rather than a single monolithic service such as Apple's App Store.

"The current application marketplace is defined by 150 years of molecular thinking, but electrons are to all intents and purposes free," he said.

"We love the idea that there can be thousands of stores and each store can specialise in its own goods."

To that extent, Intel sees itself providing support for retailers and developers who want to see the advantages of the application store format.

Operating on the conventional 70/30 revenue split, AppUp is also aiming to give PC software developers tools to integrate features such as in-app payments.

So far, Biddle said that developers have told Intel that payment and service models offer the greatest challenges when porting between mobile platforms and PCs.

"Developers are not telling us that it is killing their business to write to Android and iOS," he explained. "Increasingly, some of the services that developers use in Android and iOS are becoming the most interesting points of attention."

V3 has posted a video of peter Biddle talking about Intel AppUp.