RIM unveils BlackBerry Application Storefront and Application Center

Fancy making a few quid out of bored businessmen? You're in luck, with RIM set to introduce the BlackBerry Application Storefront and BlackBerry Application Center. Indeed, with the crossover appeal of the Bold and Storm, the potential to cash in should stretch to the consumer market too. And we're talking serious cash - RIM is guaranteeing 80 percent of revenue from app sales, the rest we would guess is going to RIM and PayPal, the latter handling the online payments. You can get your weird and wonderful widgets in from December 2008, while the store opens for business from March 2009. Also on offer is the BlackBerry application center, which will offer 'after-market application downloads' specific to networks. RIM offers the Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones application as an example, but we're guessing this also means software updates, should any device have 'problems' after launch. This area looks likely to arrive sooner than the app store. Source: BlackBerry (link)