Palm Refunding Submission Fees For App Catalog

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Palm is trying really hard to grow a good app environment like you’d find on the iTunes App Store or Android Market. Case in point – they’ve decided to drop the $50 submission fee that’s required for approval and admission into the Palm App Catalog. And even bigger news, their refunding the $50′s already paid by developers with their apps already in the App Catalog.

Remember that the Palm App Catalog only has 2,684 apps, according to Engadget, so this will only set Palm back about $134,000. Palm is also really burning through the cash with their Summer sale. As we previously covered, all apps are 50% in the App Catalog, and Palm is paying developers their full share while discounting for customers – with Palm paying the difference.

In addition to that (surely) costly sale, they’re also having another $1 million Hot Apps promotions. Developers with the most downloaded apps will receive various cash prizes – $100,000 for the most downloaded free app, $100,000 for the paid app that makes the most revenue, then various tiered prizes for runner up applications. A nice prize for developers. They’ve trying to recreate the (reportedly) big money that developers are making on the iTunes App Store.

Many sites are saying things like “Man, HP is really giving Palm a lot of clearance to spend the money,” but the sale hasn’t gone through yet. Palm is still independent, although both HP’s and Palm’s shareholders have approved the deal. I guess HP could be giving orders to Palm already, but this seems like something Palm is doing on their own – for whatever it’s worth.

Any webOS owners gotten any cool apps for half-price on this sale?