Following three months of alpha testing, software company BlueStacks has released the beta-1 version of its App Player for PC to the public.

BlueStacks's App Player allows over 450,000 Android apps to run on any PC supporting Windows XP, Display, and Windows 7 without the need for modifications or porting.

The beta-1 version incorporates the company's patent-pending Layercake technology allowing apps written for ARM processors, hardware graphic acceleration, and graphic-intensive engines such as Unity run seamlessly through App Player.

Beta late than never

During its three months of alpha testing, which began in October 2011, the App Player attracted over a million users from more than 100 countries.

Despite a limited selection of apps, over 4.5 million apps were opened with popular apps including Kakao Talk in Korea, Wordfeud in Germany, and WhatsApp in the US.

BlueStack's CEO Rosen Sharma compares the arrival of the App Player to the arrival of Rovio's Angry Birds on browsers.

"First there was Angry Birds on Chrome which was a big deal, then recently Steve Ballmer stood up at CES and announced that Cut the Rope had been ported to IE9 – with BlueStacks, it's 450,000 apps coming to Windows at once."

Calling for backup

Developers are backing the beta-1 version by partnering with BlueStacks to have their apps come pre-loaded on the program included are the likes of Fruit Ninja, SliceIt!, Barnes & Noble's Nook, Townsmen, Evernote, Defender, and StumbleUpon.

"A billion PCs is a huge potential market for any developer. There is the potential to make good money from the additional app discovery and usage," said Markus Kassulke, CEO of Townsmen developer HandyGames.

BlueStack's App Player can be downloaded from its official

site.