As we intimated in last night’s blog post, Rim has been on the verge of launching its own “App Store” for the BlackBerry and it made the official announcement this morning at its first developer conference.
It comes a day before the official launch of the Android Market for the Google-inspired platform, opening to coincide with availability of the first Android phone.
Rim plans to launch its own “application storefront” in March 2009, with BlackBerry application developers able to submit applications and content for inclusion this December.
At 20 per cent, Rim is taking a smaller cut from developers than the 30 per cent Apple takes for approving and featuring App store apps. Developers will be able to set their own prices.
Rim is coming fairly late to the game – its presentation today was similar to Steve Jobs’ demonstration to Apple’s developer community in March, when some early applications were shown. Rim showed off Slacker and other apps at its show-and-tell.
So as not to upset its carrier partners, Rim said it would also provide carrier-customised on-device “application centres”. To calm the fears of enterprise customers, worried at what employees could be downloading, those that have deployed BlackBerry Enterprise Server will be able to retain control of what applications are downloaded.
Rim did not announce anything like an iTunes PC version of its software, which suggests its “App Store” will reside mainly if not exclusively on the handset. It did say it was working with PayPal to provide consumers with a way to pay for applications within the new application storefront, right from their BlackBerry smartphone.
UPDATE: Similar to the Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers $100m “iFund” for iPhone app developers, the Developer Conference has been told about a $150m BlackBerry Partners Fund, with VCs including RBC Venture Partners involved. There have been 4,000 inquiries to date and three anchor tenants taken on. The fund announced a “Jump Start” programme today, offering financing of up to $250,000 to speed up the development process.
