Blackberry's Future

mondaynote.com

6 points·barrynolan··4 comments

Is the "developer community energized"?

not so much. I have the BB SDK, but it's ugly, because every time there is a new BlackBerry Phone they obsolete the old API. Stupid, stupid move.

Hah, they even have a Certification Program, find them, go to them, do a test, pass, PAY, leave with a paper. What would you expect from a classical business oriented company without vision, innovation and gut.

They should pay YOU to do the test when you pass, they have a much higher need for developers than we need them.

They need the core applications more than they need random developers creating led notifications and keyboards.

My assumption is their target market is corporate. They need Citrix, Cisco, Remote Desktop support, banking applications and Bloomberg.

Edit: they did try to get developers to port their apps by floating a free z10 for them, oddly enough none of those apps are configured for the q10 their flagship phone currently. Also for end users such as myself the android ports work to a degree.

When Blackberry was on top of the world it was economically plausible for them to have their own OS kernel and userland. But the critical mass to support that is very high, and Blackberry may not have that any more.

Blackberry OS also does not have a managed language runtime. It's not an app runtime that's going to attract developers for innovative capabilities or ease of development.

Blackberry does have a messaging and email infrastructure, but the compelling reasons to use it are mostly obsolete and uncompelling to new customers.

Lastly, Blackberry used to be the cheaper "junior" smartphone. But Nokia is somehow selling a Lumia for an all-up price of $149, unsubsidized, in t-Mobile shops, which makes it the cheapest way to get on a cheap T-Mo smartphone plan.

I think they are done. I don't see a way back.

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