Samsung announced that they’ll be launching an app store for the Omnia II and Omnia Lite handsets, both of which are Windows Mobile phones. The store itself will be online on September 14th, and already Samsung seems to have a bunch of launch partners, including “Gameloft, Electronic Arts, Handmark, TAITO, Paragon SW, Capcom, Com2us, Prompt, Pearson Longman, Bokan Tech and Diotek.” Anyone who plays iPhone games will probably recognize Gameloft, who have done a hell of a lot of mobile games. And probably everyone recognizes Electronic Arts. Samsung says that there’ll be 300 applications available at launch, which they expect to expand to 3000 by the end of the year.

Perhaps the most important thing about this news is that the Samsung app store will be competing with Microsoft’s own app store for the Windows Mobile platform. The Samsung store is launching in the UK and France and Italy, all of which are also places where Microsoft wants to exert some app store dominance.

While a two app store environment may not be one that most consumers find familiar, a more decentralized environment for mobile applications is …

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