Amazon.com on Thursday announced plans to release a Kindle Development Kit beginning in February. The kit will allow third-party software developers to make applications that can run on the Kindle, Amazon’s e-book reader.

Apple is poised to announce a new product in less than a week, and it’s been widely speculated that the company is readying a tablet or slate device that will ultimately compete in the e-book reader market. What’s more, Amazon has seen increased competition from Sony and Barnes and Noble, who both have their own e-book readers. And at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held earlier this month in Las Vegas, numerous companies introduced other e-book reader designs. But for the past two years, Amazon has positioned the Kindle front and center for its own prodigious user base, which has made the device its best-selling product.

The Kindle Development Kit will expose the technology that app developers need to roll their own software for the Kindle, leveraging built-in Kindle technology like the “Whispernet” 3G networking technology that enables e-book content to be transmitted over the air, using cellular data networks. Amazon expects developers to make games, software that taps into weather reports and current events, and more.

The Kindle Development Kit has elicited the support of game publisher EA Mobile, which also makes software for the iPhone OS. Popular mobile software maker Handmark has also thrown its hat in the ring with a forthcoming restaurant guide based on the popular Zagat series.

The Kindle Development Kit will include sample code and simulators that will let developers test out their apps on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux operating systems.