Like every other handset manufacturer, service provider and software developer, US mobile network operator Varizon has announced plans to launch its own mobile application store.

In an interview with Gigaom, Verizon's vice president of partner management, Ryan Hughes, stated that the difference with this app store is it intends to aggregate content from four different and development communities: Windows Mobile, Palm, Android and BlackBerry.

While this sounds great in principle Hughes also indicated that the company would be solidifying its own store by disallowing the placement of external application stores (as BlackBerry App World and the forthcoming Windows Marketplace) on its network's handsets.

He also declined to discuss the revenue sharing system, which is a primary factor in encouraging developers to create software for a specific store.

Previously, Verizon provided software through Qualcomm's BREW system, which was a limited prospect at best and didn't cater for the wide array of smartphones that have been available for some time.

The general feeling is that this is quite an about-face for Verizon, and it remains to be seen whether developers will jump through additional hoops for inclusion on the operator's network, or simply write software directly for handset manufacturers.