Research In Motion (RIM) yesterday used the opening day of its annual BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco to make a series of announcements aimed at further encouraging development of applications for the BlackBerry. It introduced a service that allows developers to integrate advertising into BlackBerry applications and said it will help developers better integrate and process payments for premium content. It also unveiled software that will make it easier for Java developers to build user interfaces for BlackBerry applications as well as 3D games and graphics, and announced an expanded collaboration with Flash technology developer, Adobe.

Giving developers more incentive to work with RIM is a necessary move in light of the success of rival application stores. Whereas Apple’s App Store offers over 100,000 apps, RIM’s BlackBerry App World, launched in April, reportedly offers about 2,000-3,000 applications. RIM also faces growing competition from Google’s Android Market, an open-source application store expected to attract huge interest from developers.