Probably as a result of pressure from Apple's highly successful application store, the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, Research In Motion (RIM), has unveiled an application storefront for the BlackBerry operating system [1]. Indeed, Google also announced an Android Market [2] earlier, which will serve as an online center for its open-source operating system. Not to be outdone, Microsoft has also been spotted posting job advertisements [3] for new staff for a Windows Mobile related "Skymarket" service. As expected, carriers are not keen to give application developers free reign on this lucrative front. At this point however, there appears to be nothing much they can do against this inexorable trend. Principal analyst Charles Golvin at Forrester Research believes that wireless carriers can already "see the writing on the wall." The upside, of course, is carriers will still make money on their data plans.

To read more about mobile application stores:
- check out this article [4] from CNET News