Press Release!
RIM to Launch BlackBerry Application Storefront and BlackBerry Application Center
New online distribution channels to benefit consumers, carriers and developers as market for BlackBerry applications continues to grow
Santa Clara, CA - BlackBerry Developer Conference – Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced two major distribution initiatives for BlackBerry® smartphone applications at the BlackBerry Developer Conference. A new online application storefront and a new on-device application center will help application developers and carriers reach millions of BlackBerry® smartphone users worldwide and will provide consumers with greater choice, enhanced application discovery and an easy method for managing installation, upgrades, and purchases.
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Wow, is this big news. And entirely unexpected. While the BlackBerry Nation has been clamoring for an all-in-one BlackBerry app store for a long time, few thought RIM would ever take the plunge and do it. This is big time: way to go Kevin!
According to our boy at CrackBerry, the BlackBerry Application Center will launch with the BlackBerry Storm’s OS 4.7. It will allow BlackBerry users find, browse and install/upgrade 3rd party BlackBerry apps hosted by carriers. The Application Center will display an up to date list of applications availalbe for download, along with description and marketing information about each application. Functionally, the App Center will consist of the device side client and a a server backend hosted by RIM that the application will interact with to retrieve up to date application list of applications hosted by the carriers.
Obviously, this is significantly different that Apple’s iTunes app store, in that it is designed to make it easier for carriers to display and sell their applications to users, rather than cut them out of the picture. I wonder if we’ll see a lightsaber application for the BlackBerry Bold… Kevin is hinting that RIM will make a major announcement about the BlackBerry Application Center during the BlackBerry Developer Conference (sweet!), so stay tuned for more info. Wow, BBDC has quickly turned into the must-go event of the year!
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Read the rest of RIM developing a BlackBerry Application Center (455 words)