There will now be two major distribution channels for BlackBerry apps. The on-device BlackBerry Application Center and online BlackBerry Application Storefront, that should be ready by March 2009, will make it easier for the 20 million BlackBerry users to download add-on applications for their respective phone models. Applications for AOL, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Gmail and Windows Live Hotmail are among those soon to be made available.

Application authors will be entitled to 80 per cent of the proceeds. The other 20 per cent will go to RIM - and in all probability to the carriers, as and when users download applications on their phone from the carrier-controlled store. RIM also announced that it was working on a partnership with PayPal who will serve as the payment system for purchases made on the online Blackberry Application Storefront.

The version 4.6 browser of BlackBerry Bold will operate much more like a desktop browser, with support for CSS, HTML, Ajax, XHTML and DOM L2 code. It is hoped that the new channels will attract more application developers to visit the online and on-device stores.