RIM has opened BlackBerry App World to applications that will run on the company’s PlayBook tablet, which is due to launch in the first quarter of 2011. The company is attempting to seed interest among developers, in advance of the actual product release. In a similar spirit, RIM has already been pushing out updates for the tablet OS’ SDK. Most recently, it released an update to the beta version of the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR in early December. The updates included BlackBerry OS UI Component OS UI bug fixes, Windows 64-bit support, Linux support and Flash Builder 4.5 support. The initial beta version of BlackBerry Tablet OS for Adobe AIR was released at the end of October. RIM first announced the PlayBook at the end of September and developers were able to register for early access to the Tablet OS SDK at the same time.

The PlayBook will be the first RIM device to run on its new QNX OS. RIM acquired the OS with the purchase of its creater (also called QNX) earlier this year. Speaking this week at the All Things Digital: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco, RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said that the company will in the future deploy the QNX OS on its high-end smartphones that run on multi-core processors. He did not give a timetable. Currently, RIM’s BlackBerry handsets use the in-house BlackBerry OS. From developers’ point of view, a dual OS strategy could stretch their resources. Research firm GigaOm Pro had some advice for RIM earlier this week, which included  making “developing for both platforms as painless, and as lucrative, as possible.” The advice also mentioned making the QNX SDK available well in advance of product launches and fully supporting the BlackBerry OS for “as long as necessary”. The firm suggested building a bigger and better app store. “Because even if RIM can produce top-notch QNX devices, they’ll flop if they don’t have enough apps to make them useful,” concluded GigaOm Pro.