Network equipment maker Ericsson is following Qualcomm's lead by announcing a new, hosted applications store that wireless network operators can use to offer content to their customers. Earlier this year, Qualcomm introduced Plaza Retail, a way to distribute content to all phones via the network operator rather than the branded experiences offered by the likes of Apple, Google, Palm, RIM and Microsoft. Ericsson's store, similar to Qualcomm's, will be compatible with a wide variety of handsets and can be configured and controlled however the wireless network operators choose.

Ida La Spisa, head of Ericsson’s service delivery platform solutions, said carriers are certainly no strangers to retailing mobile applications—every operator with a data network has had some form of content storefront up since the advent of mobile data networks. But the launch of the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iTunes App Store last year put those browser-based portals to shame, showing the wireless world that a feature-rich, developer-friendly and highly integrated store could generate enormous amounts of traffic.

“There is a huge amount of people and a huge amount of services available on the Apple store,” La Spisa said. “The reason is the usability and the user experience of the App Store has been great.”

La Spisa said Ericsson hopes to help operators replicate Apple’s success by providing an easy-to-implement framework with a much broader range than the iTunes App Store. Instead of being isolated to a single device, Ericsson and an operator customer can tailor the app store for a range of different devices and operating systems, scaling it up to the most sophisticated smart phones and down to the lowliest of feature phones. The key for the operator is to scale the service to have the broadest appeal, she said.

In addition, an operator can add value to an app store that Apple can’t. Though customers can preview, pay for and download applications over the operator’s network, Apple doesn’t have access to critical information that could be used to customize or personalize the service. “Apple can track how often an application is downloaded, but it can’t track often, when and how it is being used,” La Spisa said. Using subscriber data and presence information, an operator can add additional value to an app, such as targeted advertising, she said.

Ericsson isn’t just bringing technology to the table; it proposes taking over as much or as a little of the application ecosystem as an operator requires, La Spisa said. Ericsson can set up the developer community and manage access to an operator’s application programming interfaces, which would let a developer tap into GPS, SMS services or applications resident in the device. Ericsson can also handle the business end of the service, brokering the transactions between consumer, carrier and developer.