Samsung Electronics think so. The Korean company is here pitching Samsung Apps, an application platform and marketplace, to media and content providers, as well as individual third-party developers.
Samsung Apps, as the platform is called, has been rolled out in other countries, but the company came here for its first developer conference, called Free the TV Challenge, to introduce its new software development kit to more than 100 developers in the United States.
Since app stores have become a given for portables–no phone maker would dream of launching a new smartphone today …

Motorola, which has regained some credibility with the Droid/Milestone and its new focus on Android smartphones, also seems to be trying in earnest to do things right again in China, where it has lost significant market-share in recent years.
Aside from a relaunch Monday of Moto’s hit Ming series in China, the company has started a Chinese version of its application store called Shop4Apps which, unlike Apple’s Chinese App Store, is available in Chinese.
Moto’s application store, which can be used in addition to Google’s Android Market on Motorola smartphones (though the …