The ironic part is that Kik is a Canadian company also in Waterloo.
Where's the irony?
It's like rain on your wedding day.
RIM kicks Kik off Blackberries: Revokes keys, disables push
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Re: RIM kicks Kik off Blackberries: Revokes keys, disables push
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
He was an intern.
As have been a disproportionate number of Canadian software engineers, one should add.
Software interns in Canada get paid. He was a Waterloo student where he'd be required to do the co-op program since he was an engineer and he'd be paid pretty well at RIM. I did the co-op program and was able to finish undergrad without any debt because of it.
Re: RIM kicks Kik off Blackberries: Revokes keys, disables push
#23The Kik fairy tale never made sense. One of the guys behind the company was a PM at RIM, if I remember correctly. The entire UI of the app is a direct rip of BlackBerry Messenger. It was only a matter of time -- I wonder when RIM will sue them.
Sue them for what? Are trade secrets involved? Are the bitmaps directly lifted from RIM property? Because there is no copyright protection for the general idea of an interface! Edit: Patent ≠ copyright, but nonetheless a patent suit would be interesting, damned weak, and unlikely to be resolved for years (IANAL)
A patent suit is possible. RIM has a number of mobile UI patents. I'm not familiar with Kik's UI, but if it's as close as I've heard, they could be infringing on a patent like this one: http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=6lKrAAAAEBAJ
Re: RIM kicks Kik off Blackberries: Revokes keys, disables push
#24Once again somebody suffers because they compete directly with a core feature of a platform they use to distribute/market themselves. It wouldn't surprise me if all (FB, Apple, Twitter, now RIM) but one (Android) digital platform curation teams acted in the same way. Of course, it is their platform, their right. Android can afford not to because Google have a different business model.
Android seems to have the same problem with Skype: since Google's business model is different from the other mobile OS developers, it falls to the handset makers and carriers to make those sorts of ridiculous decisions.
Verizon being the sole carrier with Skype will hurt Skype's adoption on mobile phones because if you want to talk to someone with an Android phone, they have to be a Verizon customer. Thus, it isn't a given that they will have the ability to Skype, so you use the mobile phone network, inferior as it is, instead.
Re: RIM kicks Kik off Blackberries: Revokes keys, disables push
#25The ironic part is that Kik is a Canadian company also in Waterloo.
Where's the irony?
Tragic irony, not verbal irony. "Paradox that arises from insoluble problems."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony#Tragic_irony
RIM kills Kik to save BBM but is probably killing themselves.
Re: RIM kicks Kik off Blackberries: Revokes keys, disables push
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sue them for what? Are trade secrets involved? Are the bitmaps directly lifted from RIM property? Because there is no copyright protection for the general idea of an interface! Edit: Patent ≠ copyright, but nonetheless a patent suit would be interesting, damned weak, and unlikely to be resolved for years (IANAL)
Because there is no copyright protection for the general idea of an interface! This isn't actually true, you can patent interfaces. Notoriously, a TV channel guide which has a grid interface with channels and times represented as columns and rows is patented (originally by TVGuide, now owned by Rovi). Every Guide you see on a cable or satellite box in the US pays a licensing fee to Rovi. http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/…
Don't Apple's lawsuits against Android almost completely revolve around general ideas of interfaces?
Re: RIM kicks Kik off Blackberries: Revokes keys, disables push
#27Goodbye Blackberry.
Re: RIM kicks Kik off Blackberries: Revokes keys, disables push
#28This is just painfully stupid. Finally an app on Blackberry actually garners some attention, and RIM kicks it off the market. For anyone who has ever bitched about Apple being draconian, this is just another example of what the mobile app world was like before the App Store. It really wasn't all unicorns and rainbows and happy developers skipping through the meadow. It was locked down and cost absurd amounts of money…
Actually I loaded many programs onto my phone without RIM getting involved.
App World is just their attempt to copy the Apple "curated" model, with worse results. Access to the BB push infrastructure is a special case though.
Re: RIM kicks Kik off Blackberries: Revokes keys, disables push
#29Kik is exactly what the mobile ecosystem needs. The only thing it needs is brand support. If Apple and Google made official messaging apps based around a central system with BBM's features, it would probably muscle RIM into either joining on the open messaging solution or dying a slow death.
If both Android and iOS devices could talk to each other via a system like BBM's, it would easily mean RIM's services getting phased out. It's either BBM for the masses or BBM only for Blackberry users.
I use a Blackberry because of the BBM. In my country it's a necessity, so it doesn't matter how much I want an iphone, it makes no sense while Blackberry and it's messaging app are so widespread and there are really no competitors.
If Kik where to get bought by Google and the big G gave free access to that service (and Apple integrates it by default on it's iPhone and iPad) it could very well mean RIM's demise.