I just read an article in my inbox from Fierce Developer.  The article was discussing what is hot at Mobile World Congress, which is going on this week in Barcelona.  So what is the big topic of conversation there?  Not surprisingly it’s app stores.  Just look at the landscape today.  We have the iPhone App Store and Android Market already.  Add to that announcments from RIM (BlackBerry), Microsoft, Palm, Nokia, and LG, and you can see how quickly the whole concept is proliferating.

At the core, both economics and a desire to control the user experience with the mobile devices are driving the handset makers to offer these stores.  What I think is more interesting though is that we are at a tipping point with mobile devices.  Our mobile phones are starting to cross over from “just phones” to devices that are more PC-like.  The whole concept of the app store is facilitating that change.  The stores offer more than just ring tones.  Granted, much of what they offer today is along the lines of games, or other types of applications to keep us entertained waiting on a flight, or waiting on our friends to pick us up.  But more is coming, including more business applications.

The app stores open up a market for developers much, much larger than they could access with their own resources.  This helps drive creativity, because there is actually a place to display your wares once you have taken the time to develop them.  The more applications that are available, the more useful our phones can be, and the more like computers they become.  The more capable the phones become, the more application developers can do with them.  It’s a circle that feeds on itself.  I don’t think mobile phones have completely crossed over yet, but I do think we are witnessing that cross over occur before our eyes.