How can RIM give incentives to developers to build apps?

Consumers are now influencers in the enterprise IT space. Consumers like apps, RIM wants to compete in the mobile space, so RIM needs some cool apps. Even if a billion available apps don't help an enterprise with daily operations, if RIM wants access to enterprise customers, they need to listen to end consumers. RIM should outsource teams of app developers to create a mixture of game apps as well as apps that accentuate the hardware and software that they ship today. They should be running monthly contests to encourage developers to create apps. Blackberry apps are FREE to create (java is free, eclipse is free, and BB dev license is free, or it used to be). And you just need a PC, any flavor PC. Most developers today already know java, too. Compare this to Apple where the developer has to shell out 100 dollars (per year), has to have a Mac for development, and has to learn Objective-C which is VERY different than C++, and learn the XCode SDK. All of these obstacles AND developers are writing apps for Apple, not RIM. Apple is great at marketing and RIM is terrible at it. And when I say marketing, I mean marketing to the developer community. You have to have sexy hardware to appeal the developer and RIM does not. Since there is no momentum in the BB AppWorld, they need to create it. Once the apps start getting traction, more consumers will consider them, and then the enterprise may follow once again. Apple proved this by taking a huge bite out of RIMs enterprise contracts once they had support for exchange server. More and more businesses are retiring their BlackBerries for Apples because it makes their employees happy.

I’m not convinced that a deep plethora of applications is as important for enterprise adoption as it is in the consumer market. If RIM is getting back to basics and reclaiming their differentiating value proposition (enterprise mobile devices), I think the efforts and capital are better spent building and strengthening APIs to interface with the most popular enterprise software tools and producing a solid SDK to integrate with the most popular IDEs (like Eclipse).

As an advisor to enterprise decision makers, it’s been my experience that enterprise leaders are more interested in the platform’s integration with their own legacy and home-grown applications. Typically, when enterprises identify a need, they either build an application using in-house resources or hire a firm to produce it. Flexibility of the platform to easily port existing applications or build custom clients/portals is far more important in my opinion.

Erica,

I think the Apple example you give actually supports my point. Apple had tons of consumer appeal but didn't really start digging into the enterprise space until they added Exchange support.

Further, if RIM wants thousands of applications to be built, enterprise customers will demand that they also provide quality assurance through careful vetting of the apps. The governance cost of this is enormous and very labor intensive. It's also a turn-off for many developers.

Enterprises calculate risk and return completely differently than consumers. If I download a piece of malware on my personal phone, my friends’ phone numbers could be compromised. If the same thing happens on an enterprise handset, it could result in significant losses in fines and lawsuits among other things. The stakes are higher for enterprises so the purchase decision is likewise very different.

Dollar for dollar and hour for hour, I think RIM's investments would be better spent on things that drive enterprise decision making directly as opposed to trying to overcome the network effects of Apple and Google.

John -
I tend to live the world of "it should be like this" and not "this is how it is". When I take off my rose colored glasses, I agree and am all too familiar with how enterprises manage risk. There is a shift occurring, though, where the enterprises are not completely in touch with all of the devices touching it. That's a different topic though :) The difference is that the enterprises today have to use great precision in securing resource that today DO include personal devices more and more.

My main point, however, that I was trying to make is that Apps will help RIM compete with Apple and Google, if they choose to stay in the mobile OS market. RIM being focused on enterprise should not mean that ignore consumers because these 2 demographics are blending in this space.

Just like businesses had to react to the internet, they have to react to mobile and trying to connect the dots to an outdated legacy infrastructure is not going to be effective for very long. I think we both agree that everything in IT is changing and I am not convinced that RIM should stay in the vertical they currently occupy. But if they do, I believe the apps part of mobile computing cannot continue to be ignored by RIM. The vetting process is only difficult currently because of the lack of control and inspection that platforms like Android and RIM offer to malicious coders. I agree that this decision is the costly one and the difficult path.

But then when we think about things that drive enterprise decision making today, I see cost, support, and security as the top factors driving most decisions in businesses. Shifting to the cloud is cheaper and easier for businesses. The decision after this one is "how can we easily access and manage our data in the cloud from mobile?" Apps are a good answer here. I tend to disagree that developers are turned off by the QA of development. We tend to want our software to be good and good QA gives us this, even if it can be frustrating.

But you are correct - it is an expensive and costly decision they will have to make no matter what they decide (unless they suddenly post the For Sale sign out front).

Related to your point Erica, the experience individuals enjoy using consumer apps is setting a new, very high bar for IT in order for them to meet rising employee expectations.

Blackberry builds ( has built ) good technology to sell devices with features.
Apple builds products and sells experiences.