BlackBerry® World™ Development

[phikachu]

Still nothing official form Blackberry but there have been a couple of new stories circulating. 

http://www.techspot.com/news/50056-rim-offering-developers-up-to-10000-to-build-for-blackberry-10.ht...

A one time offer per development houes but a developr may submit multiple apps for consideration? Not much of an incentive and certainly not what was spokenof during bb10 jam. 

That rules me out.

[samyotte]

Hey phikachu,

We posted info here

https://developer.blackberry.com/builtforblackberry/commitment/

[phikachu]

Thanks.

Rather dissapointing but also expected given RIM's financial predicament. Alec Saunders said it shows confidence in their eco system and that RIM "Was putitng their money where their mouth is". By limiting it to one per developer you are actually saying the opposite and that you don't trust the quality certification to select only the apps they know will succeed. This is also backtracking on everything pitched to developers at Blackberry Jam.

[peter9477]

Actually, as I was also there at the Orlando Jam, and listened very VERY carefully to everything that was said, I'd like to correct what phikachu said. Nothing that they've given in the official "10K commitment" stuff backtracks on or contradicts a single thing they said at the Jam.

They were even careful at the time to be clear with us that they did not yet know the terms in enough detail to say whether it would be one per app, one per developer, or what.

I know this because I asked Alec directly about those questions, and got clear answers, and also because they responded similarly to some questions posted by the audience in one of the larger meetings I was in.

Some may feel let down in some way, but I have to say it's because of unreasonable expectations you set up for yourself, not because RIM has said one thing and then done another.

(Edit: on re-reading, I see you didn't mention "Orlando" specifically.  If you were told something incorrect at one of the following Jams, then obviously my comments can't apply as I wasn't at those...)

[phikachu]

I'm sure they would have told you all the caveats of their offer in person but that is not the impression they gave the press and developers. I do feel they have misinformed people about this offer just to create a buzz around it.

I can find plenty of sound bites from keynotes indicating this was a per app offer and  I'm sure this was the case up until RIM declared their financial results a month ago. There was also mention of an investment of $100 million straight after talking about this offer which was misleading in that it was timed to give the impression this was for the offer. Now that ceiling is of course 10 Million.

I don't see the problem myself. If they were confident with the quality certification program then they should never have to pay out. A single gurantee of $10,000 is not a big enough incentive for serious developers to invest their time. Especially for a new platform that might not even make it to the market and from a struggling company that won't be around as we know it over the course of the next year. 

[peter9477]

You're welcome to try finding the soundbites, and I'd respond to your posts if you do. I'll just say that I was there, listened very carefully, and that was everyone's first question, and at no time did anyone else there actually hear "per app".

For the $100 million, I'm pretty sure that was for the entire program, of which this is just part, but I'm not so sure about that one.

And I've written elsewhere, that serious developers really won't need to take advantage of this anyway... their apps should make substantially more than $10K, so this is really just something to entice new devs to even consider the platform, and smaller devs to make sure they get a few apps out there. Nobody should ever have been counting on RIM to just pay out big sums for tiny apps that could make no real money on their own... that would have been pretty silly, I'm sure you'd agree.

[phikachu]

Here's the main keynote. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OBQRRn_YRDU#t=1484s

I was also at the London event.

[peter9477]

phikachu, I apologize.. you were right about the wording in the keynote.

This is a better link (closer to the relevant words): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBQRRn_YRDU&feature=player_detailpage#t=1649s

Transcribing that, Alec did say "subject to some Terms and Conditions, we're announcing that we'll guarantee that each quality certified app that's submitted to App World, before we launch BlackBerry 10, will earn at least ten thousand dollars in its first year on the market".  There was a bit more around that but it doesn't change the effect of those words.

So I was wrong that this was merely implied or could be inferred... "each app" certainly leads to the expectation you and I'm sure others had.

I know those around me and I immediately turned to each other and said "really? each app? or will it be one per vendor?", and asked for clarification on those questions at the earliest chance we had.  It was then we were told that the whole program hadn't been figured out and they didn't know which it would be yet, so they couldn't say yet.

Okay, darn... I can see some will have been counting on this.  I still don't think they should.  Expecting a mere $1K in revenue from each app, and counting on RIM to top this up so you can make a living for one year, is a pretty lousy business model in my view.  Rather look at how well apps have done with the very small PlayBook market (less than 2 million sold in over a year) and consider what you can do with a market many times bigger... and what you'll want to do in the second year, and beyond.

Well, I'm sure many of us didn't rely on what we apparently heard in the keynote...

[adwiv]

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I think it is in RIM's interest to allow unlimited number of apps per developer qualify for this program.

By limiting this program to one app per developer, it will recreate the same situation that was created during the playbook offer. People will come, develop an app and then disapper. There are thousands of vendors who have just one app on playbook.

If you want to lure people using incentives, most people will only do what is required and sufficient for that incentive. Most of the big vendors on appworld have only 2-4 playbook apps - probably created for the purpose of getting the free playbook.

[smiley]

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adwiv wrote:

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I think it is in RIM's interest to allow unlimited number of apps per developer qualify for this program.

By limiting this program to one app per developer, it will recreate the same situation that was created during the playbook offer. People will come, develop an app and then disapper. There are thousands of vendors who have just one app on playbook.

If you want to lure people using incentives, most people will only do what is required and sufficient for that incentive. Most of the big vendors on appworld have only 2-4 playbook apps - probably created for the purpose of getting the free playbook.

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One person can create multiple vendor accounts with "fake" company name and sumbit apps.  This way they can have x number of apps and will qualify to get x number of $10K per vendor account.