RIM announces US$100M investment to grow BlackBerry developer community
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Re: RIM announces US$100M investment to grow BlackBerry developer community
#2Wow, so you can still bribe people in some ways.
I must say its all very well handing out free tablets etc and offering incentives but maybe getting a few key applications ported and even paying to get them ported would be a better investment.
Reason I say this is having read this part "One of such programs incentivizes developers to build apps for BlackBerry 10 by guaranteeing the developers US$10,000 in revenues from the app. While the official terms and conditions for this program has not yet been released, Alec Saunders, VP of Developer Relations highlighted that apps that qualify for the program must be certified, paid apps built for the BlackBerry 10 and manage to earn at least US$1,000 within the first year."
Well It's hard not to think I could write a application - charge $10 or whatever price and get a few friends to buy that application and from the little time involved to code a "HELLO WORLD" application and get upon the blackberry market and the $1,000 friend investment of which I get a return on. Well I'd then qualify for $10,000.
So in effect the way they are doing this they are opening themself up to being scammed! Sorry but that is how alot will see this approach sadly. Also given the return then why not.
So I hope RIM rethinks this approach and does something more creative. Maybe pick a university and go in with a couple of people who know the RIM platform for developers - give a intro - hand out tablets for the student use for a few months so they can write an application and then those worthy they help promote and get onto the market offering support.
If they also used some of this money to have a developer help line ( no no not samaratins before you joke) but one were a developer can chat online and get questions answeared so they can speed up there application development then again they will gain.
Also If I was RIM CEO I'd look at large consumer markets like military and the like who are starting to embrace tablets and the like and with that at least gain some steady staple income to at least garantee some future.
But as this approach goes as they outlined I feel it will do them no favours.
Re: RIM announces US$100M investment to grow BlackBerry developer community
#3Wow, so you can still bribe people in some ways. I must say its all very well handing out free tablets etc and offering incentives but maybe getting a few key applications ported and even paying to get them ported would be a better investment. Reason I say this is having read this part "One of such programs incentivizes developers to build apps for BlackBerry 10 by guaranteeing the developers US$10,000 in revenues fr…
Your comment is somewhat hyperbolic and misinformed.
Firstly the Blackberry program outlined is not a bribe. They are clearly digging in and offering large incentives, but lets not throw "bribery" around.
Secondly the $10k program is not going to be a free for all, it will be offered to "... apps that qualify for the program must be certified, paid apps built for the BlackBerry 10 and manage to earn at least US$1,000 within the first year". If anything it sounds like Blackberry will make it difficult to get the $10k, since they define the certification process.
What this situation does show is how important having a group of developers working on apps is for mobile platforms these days. It seems that in future it will be much harder for other entrants to enter the market as no matter how great your device and platform, if you don't have any apps for it, people will not buy it.
Re: RIM announces US$100M investment to grow BlackBerry developer community
#4Wow, so you can still bribe people in some ways. I must say its all very well handing out free tablets etc and offering incentives but maybe getting a few key applications ported and even paying to get them ported would be a better investment. Reason I say this is having read this part "One of such programs incentivizes developers to build apps for BlackBerry 10 by guaranteeing the developers US$10,000 in revenues fr…
Your comment is somewhat hyperbolic and misinformed. Firstly the Blackberry program outlined is not a bribe. They are clearly digging in and offering large incentives, but lets not throw "bribery" around. Secondly the $10k program is not going to be a free for all, it will be offered to "... apps that qualify for the program must be certified, paid apps built for the BlackBerry 10 and manage to earn at least US$1,000…
> If anything it sounds like Blackberry will make it difficult to get the $10k, since they define the certification process.
Yeah. And it's certainly a strange way to put it: "if you can make money on BB, we'll give you more money"... ?
Re: RIM announces US$100M investment to grow BlackBerry developer community
#5Wow, so you can still bribe people in some ways. I must say its all very well handing out free tablets etc and offering incentives but maybe getting a few key applications ported and even paying to get them ported would be a better investment. Reason I say this is having read this part "One of such programs incentivizes developers to build apps for BlackBerry 10 by guaranteeing the developers US$10,000 in revenues fr…
> Wow, so you can still bribe people in some ways.
> Bribery [...] is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or other person in charge of a public or legal duty.
Emphasis mine. These kinds of incentive programs are not exactly rare, when Google gives bug bounties[0], is that a bribe? When KPBC launched their iFund[1], was that a bribe? What about Knuth handing out checks for finding errors[2]? Free hardware for developers[3]?
> Well It's hard not to think I could write a application - charge $10 or whatever price and get a few friends to buy that application and from the little time involved to code a "HELLO WORLD" application and get upon the blackberry market and the $1,000 friend investment of which I get a return on.
Sure, everything can be gamed if the oversight is lacking. If you manage to do it, more power to you, it's probably a good idea to milk RIM while they still exist anyway. Might not be the case a year from now.
[0] http://www.google.com/about/company/rewardprogram.html
[1] http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/
[2] http://sunburn.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html
[3] http://www.phonearena.com/news/Google-IOs-6000-attendees-all...
Re: RIM announces US$100M investment to grow BlackBerry developer community
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment is somewhat hyperbolic and misinformed. Firstly the Blackberry program outlined is not a bribe. They are clearly digging in and offering large incentives, but lets not throw "bribery" around. Secondly the $10k program is not going to be a free for all, it will be offered to "... apps that qualify for the program must be certified, paid apps built for the BlackBerry 10 and manage to earn at least US$1,000…
> If anything it sounds like Blackberry will make it difficult to get the $10k, since they define the certification process. Yeah. And it's certainly a strange way to put it: "if you can make money on BB, we'll give you more money"... ?
Reading between the lines it sounds like they are saying: "If you are a serious developer who can make a quality app for BB, then here is a low risk way of testing the market".
Re: RIM announces US$100M investment to grow BlackBerry developer community
#7Wow, so you can still bribe people in some ways. I must say its all very well handing out free tablets etc and offering incentives but maybe getting a few key applications ported and even paying to get them ported would be a better investment. Reason I say this is having read this part "One of such programs incentivizes developers to build apps for BlackBerry 10 by guaranteeing the developers US$10,000 in revenues fr…
Your comment is somewhat hyperbolic and misinformed. Firstly the Blackberry program outlined is not a bribe. They are clearly digging in and offering large incentives, but lets not throw "bribery" around. Secondly the $10k program is not going to be a free for all, it will be offered to "... apps that qualify for the program must be certified, paid apps built for the BlackBerry 10 and manage to earn at least US$1,000…
It's sounds like RIM will be giving developers the runaround (it's a half-baked idea anyway).
RIM continue to be in a tailspin.
Re: RIM announces US$100M investment to grow BlackBerry developer community
#8With earlier versions of the emulator the process was:
1. edit/compile in the awful RIM IDE
2. __REBOOT THE EMULATOR__ / push new code to the device.
Rebooting the emulator and pushing the new code for a test took over a minute.
I couldn't take it. I dropped support for BB and never looked back.
Have they fixed this?
Re: RIM announces US$100M investment to grow BlackBerry developer community
#9Wow, so you can still bribe people in some ways. I must say its all very well handing out free tablets etc and offering incentives but maybe getting a few key applications ported and even paying to get them ported would be a better investment. Reason I say this is having read this part "One of such programs incentivizes developers to build apps for BlackBerry 10 by guaranteeing the developers US$10,000 in revenues fr…
“I must say its all very well handing out free tablets etc and offering incentives but maybe getting a few key applications ported and even paying to get them ported would be a better investment.”
I doubt it. Microsoft has done everything you mentioned, but it hasn't helped Windows Phone 7. Instead, they've decided to bury WP7 and are starting over with WP8. And Windows Phone is a decent OS. RIM doesn't have a good OS or modern hardware.
Honestly, I don't think RIM will still exist this time next year.
Re: RIM announces US$100M investment to grow BlackBerry developer community
#10With earlier versions of the emulator the process was: 1. edit/compile in the awful RIM IDE 2. __REBOOT THE EMULATOR__ / push new code to the device. Rebooting the emulator and pushing the new code for a test took over a minute. I couldn't take it. I dropped support for BB and never looked back. Have they fixed this?
Yep. They now have 2 options basically: you can use 'Cascades' which is their modified Qt framework (modified by The Astonishing Tribe who RIM bought - awesome designers/developers) with the eclipse-based IDE, or you can write a 'webworks' app which uses web technologies (html5, js, css) and write it in whatever editor you want. The emulators are fine, but I prefer to push straight to a device