Verizon Wireless is joining SoftBank and China Mobile -huge carriers from Japan and China  – to create the Joint Innovation Lab which will become a common software foundation for the carriers to launch application stores. With the success of Apple’s iPhone App Store and Google’s Android Market, Verizon Wireless wants IN and VZW CEO Lowell McAdam thinks the movie is obvious not only for them, but for developers and consumers alike:

“I am not here to bash anybody, but if I could write one application that could touch every iPhone customer or one billion customers, who am I going to write for?”

This is a direct rebuttal to a statement made by Apple CEO Steve Jobs last week when he commented on the App Store’s first birthday:

“It is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”

Them some fightin’ words! But how will a developer people able to write one application that works for all the different manufacturer’s phones on the various carriers? Apparently the JIL tools will allow devs to make apps that work on JIL standard phones. That “1 Billion” number doesn’t seem very accurate any more, considering people first have to buy the phones with this technology when the alternatives will be much better.

Not to mention, will one application really be able to reach 1 billion customers if the developers don’t make a version in English, Japanese and Chinese? Sounds like McAdam’s is exaggerating the numbers just a bit.

Verizon Wireless customers have been jerked around a bit when it comes to allowing and not allowing capabilities and apps on our phones. Now that Verizon realizes that locking their phones down made them miss the boat, they’re trying to change directions… and it might just be too late. That is what Josh Koppel of ScrollMotion Apps thinks:

“Every company is suddenly making a mad scramble to make an app store,” says Koppel. “It doesn’t mean they know how.”

And remember… Verizon Wireless is rumored to be getting an Android Phone by the end of 2009, the Palm Pre or Palm Eos in early 2010, and perhaps the Apple iPhone shortly thereafter. Verizon’s little JIL app store will be competing with the iPhone App Store, Android Market and WebOS App Catalog not only around the world – but on its own network. I think the challenge is harder than Verizon Wireless Execs seem to let on.

[Via BusinessWeek]