The U.S. Army Marketplace, a government system developed for use by military personnel, will launch with application software for soldiers, which they can download to their computers or mobile phones.

Last year, the U.S. Army was looking to pursue issuing smartphones to soldiers, citing that the mobile devices would help improve communication on the battlefield. With the introduction of an official Army Marketplace app store, the plan comes one step closer to reality.

The Army Marketplace contains apps developed for military personnel and potential military personnel, including training manuals and productivity tools The site will also have an apps contest.

In a forum within the Marketplace, Army personnel will be able to discuss potential apps. Ideally, the Army wants these apps to be developed in-house, but if not, it could contract third-party developers. The app store is currently Web-based, but may eventually be released as an actual market app. As of now, there are 17 Android (News - Alert) apps and 16 iOS apps that are available and it is only viewable by personnel of the Department of Defense who have access to the store by way of login name and password.

Such apps to be featured are ones that track the location of friendly forces or map wartime terrain. There's a workout guide, an app for disaster relief that lets users create, edit, and search maps using Google (News - Alert) Earth, and another that lets soldiers connect with the Army’s command post software in order to learn where firefights and bombings are occurring.

The Chief Information Officer U.S. said of the announcement, “The Army Application Marketplace will bring developers and end-users together to collaborate on innovative solutions to Army problems, level the playing field for all vendors and increase competition in order to provide the best and most relevant apps for use by our Soldiers.”

According to a feature on the Android Community website, aside from offering helpful apps, soldiers may also request for apps that are not yet available.

The US Army is also developing an Android smartphone especially for its soldiers, who will be allowed to access the Army Marketplace via a native app.

The app store is expected to become fully operational by August and is a combined effort of the U.S. Army CIO/G-6, the Office of the DoD Chief Information Officer, and the Defense Information Systems Agency (News - Alert).