Joining the league of Apple, Nokia, and Research In Motion (RIM), Samsung is all set for a September 14 launch of its mobile application store, which will result in the accessibility of nearly 300 programs on select models of Samsung smartphones - Omnia, Omnia HD, and Omnia Pro - that run Windows Mobile or Symbian operating systems.

The programs, which will be increased to nearly 2,000 by 2009-end, will be paid for by the users either via credit cards or carrier billing.

To begin with, the 'over-the-air' content store, from the world's second-ranking handset maker, will be available in the UK, France, and Italy; and a few months later, the service will expectedly roll out to 30 other countries.

The forthcoming Application Store from Samsung will potentially offer direct competition to Microsoft's Windows Marketplace for Mobile, which is scheduled to open in fall this year, with almost 600 applications. Microsoft is already endeavoring to persuade developers to create applications for the store, which will be unveiled on the Windows Mobile 6.5.

It is quite evident that the key aim behind the upcoming releases of the respective Application Stores by both Samsung and Microsoft is that these companies are intending to grab a share of the mobile-application market by offering competition to the existing players, who have made sizeable gains in the app arena!