Come August, and the illustrious 'App Store' pack - comprising the pioneer Apple, along with Research In Motion, Nokia, Vodafone, and Orange - will have a new addition: Sony Ericsson, with its online software applications store called PlayNow!

Sony Ericsson announced its upcoming store on June 3, at the annual JavaOne software developers' conference in San Francisco. The mobile phone maker said that the launch of its exclusive store will allow its users to personalize their phones with a wide assortment of downloadable utilities, tools, and games over multiple platforms.

Sony Ericsson's PlayNow arena will feature over 45,000 free apps catalogued by GetJar. Inclining towards programs written for Java and Symbian, the apps will cover the company's 38 phone models in 13 countries.

For its "imminent" app store, Sony Ericsson will start accepting apps for appraisal July 1 onwards; with all accepted apps to go live a month thereafter. All the billing and collections for the apps will be handled by the company itself, which will hand over 70 percent of revenues back to developers.

One aspect that will help Sony Ericsson stand out amidst the competition is its support for a wide range of software environments in its phones. Along with the company's internally-developed platforms, its phones support the Symbian operating system, Microsoft Windows' mobile version, and Google's new open-source Android operating system.