Research In Motion (RIM) has announced plans to expand the application ecosystem for the BlackBerry PlayBook.
The BlackBerry PlayBook is scheduled to launch in the US and Canada on 19 April.
RIM will launch two optional ‘app players’ that provide an application run-time environment for BlackBerry Java apps and Android v2.3 apps. These new app players will allow users to download BlackBerry Java apps and Android apps from BlackBerry App World and run them on their BlackBerry PlayBook.
In addition, RIM will shortly release the native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook enabling C/C++ application development on the BlackBerry Tablet OS. The BlackBerry Tablet OS already supports a robust platform with support for web development standard HTML5, through the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS, and Adobe AIR, through the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR. The BlackBerry Tablet OS is built from the ground up to run WebKit and Adobe Flash as well.