Why Does RIM Have To Bribe BlackBerry Developers?
What else is on RIM's (RIMM) agenda? A $150 million fund to invest in companies developing BlackBerry apps, with partners including RBC, Thomson Reuters, and JLA Ventures. This will compete with Apple's (AAPL) $100 million "iFund" for iPhone app development and Google's (GOOG) $10 million competition to entice people to develop apps for its upcoming Android platform.
The big difference: Unlike the iPhone and Android app platforms, which don't commercially exist yet, companies have been coding and distributing BlackBerry apps for years. In other words, it's one thing to offer some money to kick-start a brand new industry; it's another thing to pool a bunch of money to fuel an existing industry.
At the end of March, Apple had sold 5.4 million iPhones; RIM sold 14 million BlackBerries during fiscal 2008, leading the U.S. smartphone market. So in theory, the BlackBerry software industry should be large, mature, healthy -- and self-sustaining. Then why does RIM need to offer an incentive for coders to write for BlackBerry?
The most obvious conclusion: RIM is seriously worried about losing steam to Apple -- whose iPhone apps looked damn good in their video demo in March -- and Google, whose Android is unproven but will get a lot of attention when it launches later this year.
So, our query to mobile developers (or people who know them): Do you develop for BlackBerry now? Will you continue to? Or are the iPhone and Android platforms potentially more interesting/lucrative? Let us know in comments below.
See Also:
RIM's iPhone Killer: Not Terrible! But No iPhone
Blackberry's Newest iPhone Defense: SAP Deal
Apple iPhone, Google Android Could Pinch RIM's Growth: Analyst
V2 iPhone is as viable as the BlackBerry 9000...
Poor move.
RIM can see the future threat and is reacting in a "me too" fashion. Unfortunately, outside of e-mail they don't have much to brag about. With the iPhone 2.0 O.S. update, corporate services software, and 3G I can see Apple eclipsing RIM in sales' rate by the end of this year. Of course, corporate adoption takes time, which will give RIM until 2009 to respond. I doubt they'll succeed as they just don't have the resources to compete.
But anyway their development tools are still painful. I would rather poke myself in the eye than used their late 90's throwback "JDE" IDE. And their Eclipse "plugin" is a complete joke, its like they took everything from the JDE and shoehorned it into Eclipse.
And why is rapc.exe, javaloader.exe, etc Windows only? If BB is serious about this $150M offer they better clean up their tools or people are going to try them out, get really frustrated, and not come back to BB development for years. Android development is a piece of cake. I'm sure iPhone is too. Why should I bang my head against a wall?
This from JL Albright's partner's blog:
"What Platforms?
All of them. No, really, all of them. Does that mean if somebody has an application on another mobile device but it isn't running on a RIM device we would fund them? Assuming it was a good investment, yes. We would expect the RIM devices to be on the roadmap and would certainly fund for that roadmap."
The bottom line is this - after 10 years, name ONE Blackberry app other than email?
Can't think of one? Yea, that's why Blackberry will be marginalized like push to talk - it's nice but outside of the niche market, no one cares. RIM had a chance but blew it.
Both RIMM and Apple have great brands. What will be interesting to see is what price point the new BB 9000 is sold for. Considering that the rumor for the new iPhone will be $199 you better hope that the BB 9000 is in the same ballpark. Otherwise, it could be a long year for RIMM.
http://techwatch.reviewk.com/2008/05/the-blackberry-bold-ex-9000-finally-arrives/
Mucking around with the Android SDK reminds me a lot of creating a personal Web service or agent that merely happens to run on a single phone endpoint. I guess the channeling reminds me of the days when we all played around with the PointCast and Backweb back channels, even though it's supposed to be kinda a single bidirectional pipe. :)
I haven't gotten around to playing with the iPhone SDK yet, so I can't speak to that (yet). I'm unfortunately disheartened by lack of non-hacked JVM availability on the iPhone.
On the drive home, I think I heard something about the new BB being in the $400-500 price range. Does that help?
What I do have to bring is this: There are stacks of excellent Mac (and some PC) developers who are incredibly excited and working hard on iPhone apps. And there is a recent history of excellent indie applications coming out for the mac which are centered on ease-of-use, visual simplicity and often a niche set of features -- which pretty much describes what you want on a PDA/phone.
It's this '3rd party' which seems oft overlooked in comparisons.
The general feeling has been that blackberry is against 'outside' app development [i.e. you need to get in the inner circle first and install in a special way, etc].
It's a little odd that they suddenly want to be so open. Good, but odd.
Quote: I'm unfortunately disheartened by lack of non-hacked JVM availability on the iPhone.
Apple, please keep JVMs off the iPhone to save us from people re-cycling their mobile apps onto the iPhone. Anyone, in any way serious about iPhone development will use the native tools.
Yes, if you're doing internal corporate development, it's like creating a stripped down version of your cross-platform apps, so the conversion issues between Java SE to Java ME still exist. At the time, I was in the unenviable position of redesigning an app suite I had created (earlier for desktop usage) into something used on Palms, Symbians, and BB's.
From a commercially available perspective, Apple's and Google's stances on providing access to their SDKs is very important toward building up a developer mindshare. Fairly cute and amusing to play with the SDKs from both, although without shipping Android-compatible phones, it's a bit tricky to see how well the new Android apps will work.
One thing that isn't discussed much is that the Android SDK can be used on anything that provides a compatible stack. It's not much of a stretch for somebody to decide to have a multifunction stereo alarm clock that starts throwing up a bunch of chat screens and a PiP MMOG viewer on a 72" bedroom LCD TV. ;)
@Ted T.:
Don't worry, according to Sun, they're working on providing an official JVM for the iPhone. It'd be hilarious to get the JVM iPhone, and then start deploying Android apps on iPhones.
You can't even get the names of the companies involved right, so I doubt you're an expert on the subject.
"Considering that the rumor for the new iPhone will be $199"
And your service provider will only charge you $5/month for unlimited everything too!
It might be $199 with a 16 year service agreement, but it will not be under $300 without one.
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BlackBerry Bold 9000..$300usd
HTC Touch Diamond.....$350usd
NOKIA N95 8GB....$350USD
IPHONE 16GB……$350USD
iPHONE 8GB……..$300USD
IPOD 32GB.........$280USD
PS3 60GB……....$300USD
SONY ERICSSON XPERIA X1.........$350USD
Bold 9000, has features that include:
HSDPA and EV-DO versions
480 x 320 LCD screen
625MHz processor
1GB internal memory
802.11a/b/g Wi-i
Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP for wireless stereo headphones support
GPS
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LOL
Apple charges developers. Google seems to have a better strategy with Android. But in my mind, RIM is going the extra mile to attract Java and .NET developers with robust tools, and real-world application frameworks.
Apple will have pretty icons and fun home applications, but RIM will clean up in the Enterprise development arena.
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