At the BlackBerry Jam Americas session, hosted recently in San Jose, California, executive management from Research in Motion (RIM) emphasised the role of partnerships and the contribution of developers worldwide as central to its approach to integrated mobile solutions and application.
The company is confident of the success that app developers will have leveraging off the newly launched BlackBerry Platform 10 – so much so that developers are invited to submit their app proposals for consideration to be certified and, if secured, they are guaranteed to generate $10 000 in the first year their app is out into the market.
In addition, RIM is working on increasing the coverage of its network of ‘drop-in’ centres, specifically designed to encourage networking between app developers and information exchange, as well as interaction with regional RIM representatives.
Alec Saunders, Vice President, Developer Relations & Ecosystem Development, RIM, as well as Christopher Smith, Vice President, Application Platform & Tools, RIM, echoed the sentiments expressed by the company’s President and CEO, Thorsten Heins, in emphasising the contribution made by developers in raising the profile of the company going forward.
According to Heins the company has grown its global worldwide subscriber base to 80 million in the second quarter of this year. He thanked developer partners for their work and urged them to continue to support this offering.
Management say part of the appeal of the new platform is that of user experience and quality of interface. It is the basis behind the introduction of BlackBerry Hub, for example, a tool that integrates all applications seamlessly, designed to offer the user an easily accessible ‘dashboard’ of accessible apps.
The introduction of BlackBerry 10 platform is viewed as being a representation of the company’s strengths – including consumer-driven features and functionality like predictive texting and keyboard enhancements.
“Applications should always be there, there should be no need to swap apps. Everything must be readable, shareable and linked,” said Heins.
Chris Tredger, Online Editor
