This article is from PC World :

Samsung plans to launch a mobile application store in Europe this quarter, following an increasingly popular path to revenue inspired by Apple's iPhone App Store.

The handset maker opened a beta version of its application store in the U.K. early this year, but it will launch and expand an official version in Europe this quarter, Samsung said in a statement Wednesday.

Samsung will join Nokia and Apple in offering application download stores for their handsets. Mobile carriers including Verizon and China Mobile plan to open application stores as well, and Google has adopted the business model with its Android Market, which offers applications for phones with the operating system. Microsoft officially opened its Windows Marketplace for Mobile download store to software developers this week.

Samsung will launch its own Web portal for application developers, who will be able to submit apps and purchase a sales contract on the site. The site will be open to developers of applications for the Windows Mobile or Symbian operating systems.

Samsung's beta store already offers paid and free application downloads. Its two most popular applications, a PC synchronizing application for Windows Mobile and a video player for Symbian, both have over 180,000 downloads, according to the store Web site.

Gee, with all of these app stores opening up, pretty soon someone is going to have to open an app store "mall" to aggregate these stores into!

Todd Allcock:

Gee, with all of these app stores opening up, pretty soon someone is going to have to open an app store "mall" to aggregate these stores into!

 

 

Laura Rooke:

Todd Allcock:

Gee, with all of these app stores opening up, pretty soon someone is going to have to open an app store "mall" to aggregate these stores into!

Yes - too many is not going to help anyone - I don't understand this logic.

Unfortunately, it'll be a "follow the money" issue.  Since the Apple app store generates money for Apple, every Tom, ***, and Samsung is going to want to attempt to cash in with their own, which, of course, fractures the marketplace, negating the advantage of a one-stop app store in the first place.

My little (I know, VERY little!) joke about an app "mall" might actually make sense- a website that aggregates the contents of the various app stores compatible with your phone and brings up the desired apps and links to the appropriate store to purchase them.  If the app stores offer affiliate payments, such a "mall" site could actually make a little money and justify its existence.

Hey if Apple can do it, so can every other manufactor of phones. Who's next?