Comment Spare Backup, which supplies cloud backup services to consumer electronics retailers, has branched out and is offering them an App Store for users of mobile internet devices, Macs and PCs.

Picking up on the success of Apple's iPhone App Store, Spare Backup has added its own App Store facility to the backup services it offers for sale through consumer electronics (CE) retailers such as Carphone Warehouse and Comet in the UK, ThinkSmart in Australia, and service operations like iYogi.

Spare Backup's App store can support mobile platforms, such as Java, Windows, Android, PCs and Smartphones.

The company is building on the white box sale of its Spare Backup product through CE retailers by offering them an App Store which they make available to their customers. Resulting revenue is shared between the retailer, Spare Backup and the app suppliers. The app suppliers get access to Spare Backup's channel, and the CE retailers get access to an App Store they can offer their customers which is not controlled by the internet device vendor as is the case with Apple's App Store.

The firm is parlaying its backup content to the cloud service into a two-way street, with app content delivered through its cloud, which helps the CE retailer have a deeper relationship with its customers.

Spare Backup's CEO, Cery Perle, said: "All-levels of IT users can not only access games, applications, and other content, but securely store and backup this content on any mobile device or PC." The company is signing up app content suppliers and has just agreed a deal with Green Man Gaming, a UK company which owns and operates an online digital distribution platform for computer game content. Spare Backup will have the rights to distribute Green Man games and incorporate its content into its App Store.

With this deal a customer's revenue from an app purchase will be split four ways, between the retailer, Spare Backup, Green Man Gaming and the app developer. Somewhere IT systems will be working out myriad small payments of a few pennies here and a few pennies there. But they will add up to a large number.

Spare Backup thinks the digital PC downloaded gaming industry is set to be worth more than $5bn by 2012, and Perle wants a piece of that action, saying: "Our content store is well positioned to be a leading consumer gaming portal." ®