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Research In Motion's new mobile application store is set to launch on April 1 at the CTIA Wireless trade show in Las Vegas, BusinessWeek reported this week.

Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM, which makes the popular BlackBerry devices, is slated to give a keynote address on the opening day of the trade show and conference. And the company is expected to announce the new application store there.
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The BlackBerry application store, which will be called BlackBerry App World, was announced in October 2008. And it is one of several application stores that have been announced to take on Apple's App Store for the iPhone. Nokia, Google, Microsoft, and Palm have all announced plans to offer their own application stores.

Even though there are more people using Nokia, RIM, and Microsoft phones today than there are iPhone users, Apple has essentially run away with the downloadable software market by linking the storefront to its iTunes software and music store. Developers have flocked to the Apple App store and there are currently more than 25,000 applications in the App Store.

Success of the RIM application store will largely depend on whether it can get application developers to develop applications for the BlackBerry devices. RIM has already been working with many established developers and has offered software kits to these developers for years. But it's also planning to be aggressive in helping developers make money from applications. And the company plans to only take a 20 percent cut of any applications that are sold in the virtual store. Apple takes a 30 percent cut.
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