Available on newer RIM Storm devices running the 4.7 BlackBerry OS like the BlackBerry Storm 9530, the BlackBerry Application Center, pictured above, will act like Apple's Application Store does for the iPhone and iPod Touch, providing BlackBerry users access to a variety of applications that they can download for free or purchase for their device.

Unlike the Apple App Store, RIM is reportedly not hosting the data for these applications in a central repository that they will control. Instead, they will provide a central database that the carriers access, and individual carriers, like Verizon, will be responsible for hosting the application data, which would seem to indicate that Verizon could be able to control what applications they do or do not want distributed via their network. For more details, see Crackberry.com's exclusive first look.

[Via Engadget]