Verizon Wireless provided more details about its Private Applications Store for Business at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications 2011 show this week.

The store – announced by the US operator in September – will allow businesses to securely manage and distribute mobile apps and content to employees and partners and is being demonstrated at CTIA.

The service should help businesses deal with the increase in consumer devices and applications that are appearing in the work environment, according to Verizon. If deployed across entire businesses it should boost cost efficiency and productivity.

The main elements of the service are a customer admin portal for IT departments to manage the service, an end-user web-based portal for users to access and find out about apps available, and an on-device client.

The service is due to launch later this year with customers being charged on a users–per-month basis.

The applications store is OS, device and operator agnostic according to Verizon Wireless and allows organisations to define which users have access to which apps. The apps on the store can be third-party developed or built in-house and can be made available inside and outside the company’s firewall.

Verizon Wireless' VP of Business Solutions Group, Janet Schijns, said the service “provides enterprises with the opportunity to leverage their existing application investments while also providing a seamless and secure way to manage new and innovative apps and provide access to content that is relevant for their business.”

Thomson Reuters and Hallmark Cards have been using the application store on a trial basis. “The Private Applications Store for Business provides an opportunity to better serve our enterprise customers by safely and securely delivering mobile solutions, and to source our content alongside other public and proprietary content, adding additional layers of context and value,” said Thomson Reuters' global head of mobile technology, Robert Schukai.

Hallmark has used the service for BlackBerry, Android and iOS devices as it looks to expand its use of mobile beyond basic email and calendar tools.