RIM In Serious Trouble Regarding Developer Interest

The decline of Research in Motion, the company responsible for releasing the Blackberry smartphones has really affected the development unit of the company as well. Many of the developers on the team are leaving the platform due to RIM’s declining smartphone market share and causing further delay in the release of the BlackBerry 10 OS. According to reports of the Baird Equity Research, development sentiment towards the BlackBerry 7 and the BlackBerry 10 has reached an all-time low. Out of over four thousand developers in RIM, two hundred were selected for the test. Results show that the collective outlook regarding the BlackBerry 10 is at a score of 3.8 out of 10. The score has dropped from 4.6 in the previous quarter.

Also, the outlook regarding the BlackBerry 7 has dropped to 2.8 from a previous average of 3.8. Let’s put these numbers in perspective. The developer’s outlook towards the Apple iOS is at a 9.3, while the score for the Google Android is 8.7. The development outlook for the BlackBerry 7 is only slightly better than that of the Hewlett-Packard’s webOS, which rates at a 2.1. Heard of it? We’re not surprised if you haven’t. Adobe’s Flash/Air platform is at par with the BlackBerry 10. The bad news doesn’t end there. Reports from Baird also state that over thirty percent of the developers on the BlackBerry 10 project have shifted their work away from the BB10. 34 percent made the shift in the previous quarter. The only good news is that this smaller BlackBerry development team will be very loyal.

Still, for a platform that is due to release in six months, that doesn’t seem like much of a silver lining. RIM’s chances for a turnaround are crumbling right in front of us and it’s not getting any easier to watch.  Baird doesn’t seem to be the only research company with such a negative outlook about RIM. According to the latest IDC/Appcelerator Mobile Developer report, the average developer’s interest in BlackBerry has gone down from a disappointing 20 percent to a horrendous 15.5 percent. RIM, on the other hand, tends to disagree. A spokesperson of the company has pointed out that the app vendor base of the company has grown over one hundred and fifty percent, and registrations for the BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour have been off the charts. Still, whether such optimism can really save the company remains to be seen.