Australian carrier Telstra says it will open a mobile application store much like Apple’s App Store, joining the frenzy surrounding such mobile app marketplaces (Microsoft, Research in Motion and Nokia all have stores in the works as well). What’s noteworthy is that Telstra is a carrier, so its app store could become the mobile equivalent of a mall, bringing together various handset or OS-specific app stores under one "roof."

Both IBM and Amdocs have launched software that would allow carriers to build their own sponsored app stores. Depending on the terms, this could be a change in policies at many carriers, which have in the past tried to govern application use on their networks and devices. In the process they’ve asked for such large chunks of the revenue and made the application approval process so difficult that most developers found some other way to get consumers to download their apps - perhaps through their own sites or third-party marketplaces like Handango.