Java Development

[sblantipodi]

Who will live will see, personally I can say with data in hands that PlayBook was a big flop,

I don't think that BBX will be much more different.

Porting a fart app is fast but porting big software isn't fast at all, require money, time and manpower,

personally I'm quite bothered from the latest trend to put a new OS on the market every 6 months.

Nokia will launch a new linux based OS for feature phones, mozilla will launch a mobile os, we

have more mobile OS than dekstop one.

I know that this is the only choice for RIM to avoid burning like nokia made but nokia made a smarter choice,

they are using a platform with an existing eco-system.

QNX has no ecosystem, QNX is the OS that made PlayBook a flop, not because it is not good, not because programmers don't like it but because this is the iOS/Android time.

People is buying iPhone and Android phones, no interest to buy something else because Android and iOS is what people want and they works good. What has BBX to offer in addition of Android or iOS?

I think that a new big era is started for RIM and I don't see anything good in their future, I hope that I'm wrong, I love RIM and I loved the money I made with it but it's time to change.

[br14]

"no interest to buy something else because Android and iOS is what people want and they works good"

People buy what the carriers tell them to buy. It has always been this way. The carriers control the smartphone market and always will while we need cell towers.

The cell phone market is volatile. You're only as good as your last product launch. RIM has great experience at making and selling smartphones, and with the exception of two quarters when they had no new product, their sales have grown every quarter for a decade. I don't see why that shouldn't continue and despite what you read BlackBerrys are actually very good at what they're designed to do.

QNX is a terrific operating system and the Playbook is a great tablet. Just because no one bought it doesn't make it bad. It's all about marketing.

In any case, if you develop using Phonegap you can build for all the major platforms with effectively a single code base. So you don't have to be selective about platforms.

[superdirt]

What has BBX to offer in addition of Android or iOS?

RIM had about 13 million phone sales last quarter and they have a strong brand. Trends still show their sales as increasing even though marketshare is decreasing. As a developer, BBX represents a significant number of customers for you.

Another issue is compatibility. I am looking at my NDK PB code for my application, and I don't see anything stopping this application from being easily ported to the iPad and iPhone. So as it stands now, I may be able to increase my sales significantly. If your application isn't easily portable, sure, you would have to take a hard look as to whether you porting it is viable.

The BBX compatibility with other operating systems seems to be pretty high and lets face it, there are tons of BB users. If you have a successful app for the iPhone or iPad that isn't too dependent on the iOS UI framework, I'd say you are throwing away money by not porting to BBX, but I am to early in the porting process to confirm this.

Porting a fart app is fast but porting big software isn't fast at all, require money, time and manpower

The major setback in porting is the UI. Almost all of the backend stuff is really easy to port.

Scott

[sblantipodi]

I don't say that BBX is bad I said that BBX is not what people want, playbook proved it.

Regarding your "People buy what the carriers tell them to buy.", have you got some statistics?
I really doubt that all people are so stupid to buy what carriers tell them to buy

Speaking too soon for now but what is the new offer from RIM? What BBX have to convince people to

buy a BBX phone instead of an Android phone or iPhone that works good, with a big community behind the os, with a great market?
Some times ago BB was the email phone, the business oriented device, what is a blackberry now and what will be with BBX?

Why people don't bought Playbook? Because it doesn't have anything new to offer.

Personally I'm out of business with RIM, I made many dollars with BB OS and my apps are well sold on every mobile market no one excluded but QNX is too much.

I don't trust BBX and I feel that RIM will see hard time, how many developers are talking about BBX here ?

I have many colleagues in other companies and no one trust BBX. There are some enthusiast here but too few as you can see from this thread.

Personally I think that the App World will be empty of apps, more than what it was with BB OS and this will not be good for developers, specially for RIM.

Have you ever tought why BB made the Android Player? It is the only chance to not sink in case the App World will be empty but they are not working enough on it.

I ported my Android Apps on Android Player with easy but I needed to remove functionalities, they don't even support their own licensing method.

I hope I will be wrong.

[Shraddha]

This is a very defensive decision i feel... RIM looks more scared of Android.. and they probably know they can't be even half as good as what android has been in past two years.

AND

RIM never really cared for its developers !

For the devs, Anyone who's worked a lot on BB... other mobile platforms would be a charm to work on.. they are so much more organised and developer friendly.. so all in all its a loss to THE technology and RIM ..

not a loss for the developers...they can always move on.. there's much more to learn and explore!

[br14]

"RIM looks more scared of Android.. and they probably know they can't be even half as good as what android has been in past two years."

That's just plain wrong. QNX is a vast improvement over Android OS wise. And most people wouldn't know the difference between OS. Certainly Android is nothing special from a consumer perspective.

Google is going to have to find at least $1 billion (possibly up to 3 billion) to pay Oracle when Oracle wins it's IP case against Google over Android. And when the carriers have to pay at least $15 per device extra (probably more) for Android devices, they'll be less like to push Android.

"I really doubt that all people are so stupid to buy what carriers tell them to buy"

What else can you buy? If you walk into a Verizon store you'll be shown what the carrier wants you to buy. Clearly you don't have to buy, but there are many more phones available than the carrier presents. They push devices on which they make more money.

So if the carrier wants to push Android, you'll find a vast range of Android devices. Yet AT&T until now have not sold the BlackBerry 9900 despite the device being excellent. When the time comes they'll push BlackBerry and Android sales will drop.

As I said earlier, the carriers control the market. And we buy what they're willing to sell.

[superdirt]

br14, you could have taken those words directly from my own mouth. I agree with everything you just said. Sales people with the carriers are trained and told to offer the users certain phones. You do get some users who know what they want before they walk into the store, but much of the smart phone sales are driven by special offers and influence of sales people. I can go more into this, but basically price and salesperson influence is still a really big factor. $15 extra per Android phone for the Java licensing fee is going to change the game. Android isn't going to drop off the face of the Earth either though.

Realistically, I believe Google is actually going to be paying more overhead than other Java licensees, because they are not actually getting support from Oracle. Oracle doesn't just hand out a JVM and collect the license fee, they normally do the work of optimizing it for the operating system as well. Google is doing the optimizing themselves, so really they are not getting the value for their $15 (and rightly so).

The comment about BBX having no ecosystem, let's look at that for a moment. QNX is an old company. As a Canadian growing up, they had QNX in our schools. It is an immensely rich operating system and it has got hardcore efficiency any geek will love. QNX is probably at least 10 times faster than Android, I would guess. It will probably be faster than iOS, i would guess as well. QNX is 30 years in the making. BBX (if this name survives btw) will have the advantage of being fully POSIX compliant, while iOS and Android are not. In terms of gaming, BBX I think has more power than iOS.

RIM has made an excellent move in implementing QNX. They are not trying to create an operating system like their competitors, they are using an OS that is tested, proven and efficient. It is top of the line. This move to QNX is similar to Apple's move to a Unix kernel with OS X. Apple stopped trying to create an OS from the ground-up and took the framework from an existing product. This was Apple's single most important move which returned them to profitability.

Scott

[ber4444]

@br14 and @superdirt check out the fosspatents blog to see how the Java case is far from ANY decision, so Oracle may as well loose it. You can continue your anti-google propaganda there with a real lawyer.

[superdirt]

I am aware there are is no final decision on the case, and I thought everyone knew that. I feel Google will be the loser based on the Judge's comments but I was speaking in hypothetical outcomes based on what I have read about the case. If anyone thought I was indicating its been ruled that Google has to pay $15 per phone, I apologize, because it hasn't. Of course it's possible for Oracle to lose. To be honest I don't really want to discuss anything about the case. I'm here to discus BBX and its future.

Scott

[br14]

@ber444

I'm not anti-Google, I use Google services regularly.  And I try to keep up to date with what is happening with the case.

The fact is that Googles avoidance of paying license fees for Java has skewed the market in their favour. What I've read suggests they'll pay for their anti-competitive actions eventually. 

I have a huge personal investment in Java, and so far as I can see between them Oracle and Google are damaging that investment. Oracles approach seems to be that if they can't make money from Java, then they might as well kill Java. Google evidently believe that paying Oracles license fee will damage Android. Certainly they've accused their competitors of trying to kill Android.

The only reason this discussion is relevant at all is because as developers we have to decide on future strategies to develop and market our software. From where I sit it appears Java is less worthwhile because alternate technologies are not as subject to legal uncertainties.

Android may not die, but actions already taken by Samsung and other manufacturers indicate that it is under threat. Ironically Microsoft may make more money in license fees than do Google from the actual Android OS (as opposed to the data that Google gathers from Android users).

I don't get RIM's approach to Java at all. If they're willing to run Dalvik on QNX (thereby also circumventing Oracle IP licensing) then why not provide API's to run BB apps on Dalvik also? I'd have thought it wouldn't be that expensive to create some form of J2ME to Java SE conversion mechanism.