Acer mulling WinMo app store

After unveiling a lineup of smartphones [1] at last month's Mobile World Congress event, vendor giant Acer said it is now mulling plans to launch its own mobile applications storefront. At a London press event late last week, Acer senior corporate VP and smart handheld president Aymar de Lencquesaing told Mobile Entertainment that the company is currently crunching the numbers on an app store to compete with similar efforts from rival handset makers like Apple, Nokia [2] and Samsung [3].

Acer said it will release four Windows Mobile-based smartphones (the M90, F900, X960 and DX900) during the first half of 2009--the over-the-air storefront would be accessible from all of the forthcoming devices, and would by extension compete with Microsoft's own Windows Marketplace for Mobile [4] as well. However, de Lencquesaing hinted that the company is additionally considering devices powered by rival operating systems, including Google's Android.

For more on Acer's app store plans:
- read this Mobile Entertainment article [5]