I was surfing through Engadget’s coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year when I came across the article for Intel’s new AppUp Center.

The AppUp Center is Intel’s attempt to create an online application marketplace for the burgeoning netbook market that largely runs on processors from Intel’s Atom line.  Now, you may say to yourself as I did, Why do we need a specialty application marketplace?  After all, netbooks run stock versions of Windows and Linux, so any application that runs on one of these two platforms should run on my netbook, right?

Well, maybe the applications from Intel’s app center are optimized for the Atom platform.  After all, the Atom processors are no where near as powerful as Intel and AMD’s mainline processors are so apps running on netbooks do tend to be slower.  If Intel has created a marketplace for applications that are optimized for the Atom, that might be interesting.  One of the featured apps is a Boxee player which is interesting as I like Boxee, but the Atom is generally not the most powerful platform for digital video.  Some of the apps are free while others have prices similar to those you would find in Apple’s AppStore – $2.99, $4.99, etc.  Boxee is free, which is another reason I chose it for my first download.

One note here – I was able to successfuly download and run the AppUp application on both my Asus netbook and my Sony laptop, but AppUp was unable to connect to the Internet from my Sony.  Don’t know if this is a glitch or simply because Intel is only supporting the kinds of network cards that come with netbooks.

Once AppUp was running, I tried to download the Boxee application and was presented with a logon box.  Okay – not really surprised here, so I chose the option to create an account.  The first screen wanted me to choose a username (email address) and a password.  We then moved onto the second screen which asked for a lot more information – basically, name, mailing address, and telephone numbers.  I’m not really ready to give Intel that much information at this point – after all, I’m not even sure if I will use any of the apps yet.  So, I went ahead and used one of my trusty alter egos who supposedly lives in a nice southern state far from me.

Now we move on the the final screen.  Intel wants my credit card.  Huh?  Okay, now I can see why they would need that information if I were to purchase an application, but since I don’t even know how much I plan to use AppUp, I’m not really prepared to give that to them.  Furthermore, I don’t even know if I could later remove the card data if I wanted to.

Now, Intel may simply be reasoning that most of us don’t think twice providing that sort of info to Apple.  After all, if you want to buy a song or application, Apple needs that info.  However, AppUp is still in beta.  Intel should allow me to proceed without credit card information in order to try out some of the free applications, but prompt me for it should I want to download a paid one.

I, for one, do not plan to just hand my credit card and billing information over to an application that is still in beta and quite honestly, until I determine whether or not I plan to use any of the AppUp applications, I am certainly not going to offer my credit card to them.  People are getting more careful with finances and the Internet as time goes on and this sort of behavior on the part of Intel is not going to do them any favors.  Until Intel offers an option where I can try out the free programs without offering sensitive financial information to them, I’ll be taking a pass on AppUp.  Too bad.  It might have been cool.