A tweet from the GetJar Networks, an alternative marketplace for mobile applications irrespective of the platform, has confirmed that the app store that the Lithuanian company offers will now exclude Opera Mini, one of the most popular cross platform mobile web browsers in the world. The company has clarified their move by providing reasons which cite that Opera Mini advertises a new mobile app store created by its own developers, Opera Software, in collaboration with Appia. PaidContent first reported the ejection of Opera Mini from the marketplace provided by GetJar.
According to reports, GetJar responded to a cynical tweet from a user which said that “GetJar probably isn’t the anti-app store after all”. GetJar said that it would elaborate on the reasoning behind the exclusion of the web browser from its store in a detailed manner on its developer blog later today. The reply, however, stated GetJar as saying that everyone has to make a living at the end of the day. This clearly implies that GetJar is in no mood to let any competition to take advantage of the marketing and distribution prowess of its network as it will have a very direct impact on their own business. Appia currently claims to offer more than 140,000 paid and free applications, which is almost equal to the number of apps that GetJar claims to offer its users.
There are some who suggest that there is a possibility that GetJar itself could have placed a bid with Opera to include its own app store in the mobile browsers of the latter, but it lost out to Appia. Neither of the companies has confirmed this. Opera, however, have stated that they are working as hard as they can to get their products to be a part of GetJar’s offerings again.
