Last September, we covered SlideME, an independent application store for Android. In short, SlideME is an alternative for Google Android Market. The biggest hurdle for SlideME is that it is not pre-installed on Android phones; this now seems to change.

SlideME landed its first deal with Vodafone Egypt, preloading its app store on the HTC Magic:

SlideME promotion on Vodafone Egypt website

This is great news for SlideME, which could also help them get more deals like this to increase their reach. The main question however is where the Android Market fits in. In the Vodafone promotion SlideME is clearly present, but the Android Market is nowhere to be found.

Is this the first operator that decides to promote an alternative app store on Android, and leaving Android Market from the device? With the open Android platform, is it possible to add new applications, and application stores, to the OS. There might be several reasons for an operator to preload a different application store than Google Android Market, of which a revenue share deal with other application stores is one.

It is not clear if SlideME will completely replace the default Android Market for Vodafone Egypt. We sent an email to the company asking for clarification, and will update this post when we hear more.

Updated: SlideME is indeed replacing the default Android Market for Vodafone Egypt on the HTC Magic. The company also announced a deal with HTC and Etisalat, a major network operator in the United Arab Emirates. Etisalat is also shipping the HTC Magic with SlideME appstore instead of Google’s Android Market pre-loaded.