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Despite gloomy predictions, developers are staying with RIM


By Victoria Reitano


 Victoria Reitano
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January 9, 2012 —  (Page 1 of 2)
Despite the fact that RIM is floundering in the blogosphere and on the stock market, developers are staying with the BlackBerry platform. Many join for the open and tightly integrated software/hardware connection, for the large international market share, and for the ability to work closely with RIM to create future products and OS updates. But even this, according to analysts, may not be enough to keep RIM’s products and OS in the smartphone race.

Ian Murphy, analyst at Creative Intellect Consulting UK, said that RIM has several issues to overcome before it can even think about reclaiming its status as a leading player in the market.

“RIM doesn’t know how to run an App Store. They are trying to get into the game and hook the youth market. The introduction of the QNX OS on the PlayBook has created confusion and has done RIM a disservice. The BBM integration came late and won’t change RIM’s place,” Murphy said.

Developers, despite Murphy’s predictions, are creating and updating applications for RIM’s devices. According to Alec Saunders, vice president of developer relations at RIM, there are approximately 46,000 applications in the App World, the RIM BlackBerry application store, 200 of which utilize the BBM connect feature, which RIM touts as one of its most innovative. BBM Connect, according to some developers, is a large download driver.

BBM Connect allows developers to plug BBM messaging capabilities into their application for a quick chat function and, it allows end users to share any application using BBM Connect through chatting on their devices.

RIM's developer retinue
ScoreMobile, creator of sports applications that cater to professional and college sports, credits the popularity of its SportsMobile FC product with BBM Connect. And Foursquare, the creator of the location-based check-in service, also credits the spike in downloads of its updated BlackBerry product to the Connect integration.

“BlackBerry is very much a big part of our usage; we just hired another BlackBerry developer," said Pete Nofelt, lead BlackBerry developer at Foursquare.

"[RIM’s devices] offer a large user base of varying demographics. Lawyers, people in the financial industry, teenagers and those interested in BBM all use the devices.”

While Foursquare does not release specific data about usage on individual mobile platforms, Nofelt confirmed that the amount of users on the BlackBerry platform is “very much on par with the iOS and Android” platforms.

For Foursquare, he said, the integrations with the BlackBerry hardware native functions—e-mail, contacts, calendars—are key. Users can easily pick a contact, create an e-mail and send it directly in the application, he said, adding that users can also share their location as their BBM status, which is where BBM Connect helped the company.

“We had over 200,000 downloads [of BBM Connect] in one day, it really blew us away,” Nofelt said. The 200,000 included new and existing users, which broke past records, he said.

BBM Connect also helps developers with a product that is built on user-generated content. Poynt, a local search platform application, said its BlackBerry user base is the second largest out of the total community of 11.5 million. Andrew Osis, CEO of Poynt, said iOS has the third-largest user base, with Android at the top of the pack.

He said that Poynt has always been on BlackBerry because when it was created in 2008, it had the largest user base. Poynt operates in nine countries and provides reviews, offers and location information to end users with the help of partners and user-generated content.

Osis said Poynt is, at the end of the day, simply interested in reaching users. “The more the merrier,” he said.


Related Search Term(s): BlackBerry, RIM

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