It's official! The Research in Motion (RIM) is set to open its BlackBerry App World today (Wednesday); that's what RIM has declared from Cellular Telephone Industries Association (CTIA) 2009 conference in Las Vegas. The maker of BlackBerry phones, RIM has stated that its 'BlackBerry App World' is on-device application store for BlackBerry smartphones; it's one-stop application store that allows the BlackBerry smartphone owners to browse, purchase and download applications directly from the on-device application store.

The BlackBerry Co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie has stated that RIM's Web site will make "BlackBerry App World" available for download, at midday, today, and there will be a thousand applications available at 'BlackBerry App World' at launch; the BlackBerry App World will offer an extensive mix of personal and business applications.

Balsillie has said, "BlackBerry App World provides a fantastic new resource for consumers and an equally exciting progression of business opportunities for our developer and carrier partners. We are launching BlackBerry App World with a solid selection and we look forward to working with our partners to continue delivering the types of apps that best suit our customers' personalized needs and interests."

The RIM has notified that the storefront can be downloaded by visiting mobile. blackberry. com or www. blackberry. com/appworld from the BlackBerry Browser. The BlackBerry smartphones starts showing BlackBerry App World icon, after downloading is complete.

According to RIM, the users are required to set up a PayPal account before starting to buy applications from the BlackBerry App World, where apps are available either free, or $2.99 or above. The BlackBerry owners can pick their apps from the BlackBerry App World's specified categories, including Entertainment, Games, Maps and Navigation, Music and Video, News and Weather, Personal Finance and Banking, Personal Health and Wellness, Productivity and Utilities, Professional and Business, Reference and eBooks, Social Networking and Sharing, Sports and Recreation, and Travel.

According to RIM, BlackBerry App World currently features Front Page Carousel, where several featured applications are showcased, and which makes easier for the Blackberry users to pick their apps from the featured applications. The BlackBerry App World will feature different applications from week to week. The featured apps this week in the initial BlackBerry App World include PrimeTime2Go - a service helps to download TV programs onto BlackBerry phones, The New York Times, Oregon Trail - a classic educational game, Bloomberg, ClearChannel (iheartradio), Pandora, Gameloft, salesforce. com, Hotel Reservation Service, Shazam, LIVESTRONG. COM, Slacker, Lonely Planet, Viigo, MTV Networks, WorldMate Live - a travel-management app, MySpace, Facebook, Ticketmaster, Google Maps, Viigo - an RSS reader and information app, Brain Challenge - a puzzle game, and Uno - a classic card game.

The BlackBerry App World has been developed to automatically show relevant catalog of apps available for a users' specific BlackBerry smartphone models. The users will be able to access BlackBerry App World over both Wi-Fi and cellular networks. The BlackBerry App World will offer a keyword search capability. The RIM's App World will also feature users' reviews that will be rated in star ratings. The users of BlackBerry App World will be allowed to recommend applications to other users via emails, PIN, SMS message or BlackBerry Messenger. The BlackBerry App World also features My World to keep track of downloaded applications.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM has stated that the BlackBerry App World is immediately available for the BlackBerry smartphone owners int the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, and the it will be subsequently available for the BlackBerry smartphone users in other countries. The users can download BlackBerry applications from visiting - mobile. blackberry. com or blackberry. com/appworld - from their BlackBerry smartphones.

According to RIM, unlike Apple's App Store, where Apple seeks commissions from app developers, the BlackBerry App World will share revenue with cell phone carriers and will allow them (cell phone carriers) to set their profiles and their own stores-within-the-store.

Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion, who is all set to reveal the looks and features of BlackBerry App World in his keynote sppech this morning at CTIA 2009 in Las Vegas, has said, "The BlackBerry platform provides a truly unparalleled mobile experience for millions of people and we are thrilled today to enhance that experience with a new app store that helps connect consumers with developers and carriers. BlackBerry App World aggregates a wide variety of personal and business apps in a way that makes it very easy for consumers to discover and download the apps that suit them while preserving the appropriate IT architecture and controls required by our enterprise customers."