Did Commodore and Apple have something similar to the 'APX' concept

[carmel_andrews]

For those that don't recall APX and what it was, it was Atari's attempt at 'commercialising' PD/user written software and getting it distributed via retail (mainly Atari stockists and dealers), according to some article i saw about the beginings of APX, it evolved from a internal software acquisition program at Atari called ASAP (apparently Chris Crawford, Mr Eastern Front was one of the co founders, along with Fred Thorlin)

 

Anyway I was reading the well known commodore history book 'Home Computer Wars' and somewhere in the book it mentioned that one of Commodore UK's management had instigated a similar software marketing/distribution program to APX for the commodore PET systems, it didn't mention if the service/system was used for Vic20 or C64, since the Manager responsible for the program got transfered to Commodore International to work on better advertising and marketing programs and also to try and replicate his software marketing and distribution program in North America/US

 

And someone here on a thread about Apple II's seemed to infer that Apple also had a similar concept to APX, Apparently Apple dealers/stockists had a catalogue of several thousand PD/User written programs that Apple had acquired for their APX like service

 

 

And to extend it slightly according to the introduction to the APX section in it's magazine, ANTIC (the people that eventually bought the rights to the APX content) mentioned that IBM had a similar concept but wasn't as successful

 

Can anyone add anything to the APX like concept that both commodore and Apple instigated,what were the commodore/Apple services called how successful were they and did the commodore version of APX also include the Vic20 and C64 or was it limited to just the PET

[Bill Loguidice]

I don't recall anything like that for Apple, but Commodore did commercially distribute public domain software under their label in themed bundles for the Commodore 64. As far as I know, though, they took the public domain thing literally and didn't remunerate any of the authors, but I don't know for sure.

[carlsson]

Also, I believe the Commodore Benelux program exchange consisted of a fair bit of user group/PD programs of which some found its way as commercial releases, mainly on the VIC-20 perhaps. Commodore may also have scouted those user groups for talent and signed people to do 3rd party commercial software released under Commodore's own label, but that is not exactly what you are asking about.