Research in Motion (RIM), leading designer, manufacturer & marketer of innovative wireless solutions for the global mobile communications market, announced two important distribution initiatives available for BlackBerry smartphone applications at the BlackBerry Developer Conference.
A fresh online application storefront & an innovative on-device application center will enable application developers & carriers connect to millions of BlackBerry smartphone consumers globally. It will grant the users greater choices, superior application discovery & a simple method for managing installation, upgrades and purchases.
RIM plans to initiate the application storefront in March 2009. Developers of BlackBerry application can commence submitting their applications and content for addition in the storefront in December 2008. The storefront will permit developers to lay down their own prices for applications. The developers will keep 80% of the revenue generated from their applications. RIM is functioning with PayPal, a leading online payment service. It aims to enable consumers a suitable and a trusted way to pay for the applications to the new application storefront, from their BlackBerry smartphones itself. The organizations that have installed BlackBerry Enterprise Server or BlackBerry Professional Software will be in charge of the applications that can be downloaded to BlackBerry smartphones within their corporate deployments.
RIM along with its carrier partners is working to offer carrier-customized, on-device application centers to help encourage after-market application downloads. The BlackBerry application center will let each carrier to permit an easy catalog exactly on the device where the customer can find out & download applications. Previously, RIM has worked with carriers fruitfully to provide on-device distribution system for individual software applications, e.g the in demand Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones application. The new BlackBerry application center will enable a carrier to develop on the success with a broader catalog & give customers with a convenient method to buy and download applications.
“The BlackBerry platform enjoys strong roots in the enterprise market and we continue to invest for growth and success with our enterprise channel partners, but the introduction of more consumer-friendly features in BlackBerry smartphones has clearly helped generate a groundswell of interest with new developers that has already resulted in the introduction of thousands of consumer and lifestyle oriented applications for BlackBerry smartphones,” commented Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “The new BlackBerry application storefront and BlackBerry application centers will further support the growing BlackBerry ecosystem and help bridge consumers with developers and carriers as more and more innovative and interesting applications arrive.”
RIM is progressively working with carrier partners on strategies to introduce the BlackBerry application center on upcoming BlackBerry smartphones.