Uploaded on Flickr by MichaelMarlatt

Yesterday Samsung launched their Application Marketplace, http://applications.samsungmobile.com/. Unlike Google, Apple and Blackberry, both Windows Mobile and Symbian’s application strategy is all over the map:

If you’re looking to start an application outlet, you need to be at the reins of the platform; if you don’t, you’re further segmenting an already messy market. With Samsung launching their own boutique, others will likely follow; suddenly we’ve got all sorts of manufacturers all peddling the exact (or nearly exact) same junk in a different way.

The short is that you cannot have an application’s strategy that is fragmented and offers significantly different experiences for different phones. Couple that with Apples significant iTunes user base, and Google Mobile Apps strength, leads both Nokia and Microsoft to control the distribution of Mobile applications for their respective platforms or frankly fail.

Which means that Nokia needs to get into the game yesterday and the best way to do that is to purchase Pocketfear from the private owners.

According to PocketGear they have the following stats:

• 100,000,000+ downloads to date
• Millions of unique monthly visitors
• 620,000+ newsletter subscribers
• 70,000+ smartphone applications
• 30,000+ developers and content providers
• Customers from 200+ countries

This means they have obviously found a need which the software vendors are not meeting and now those vendors are running against the clock, which is probably what Pocketgear is betting on. My bet is on Nokia picking them up.