Research In Motion is still going through a shaky period competing in the smartphone market with Apple Inc and Google Inc. After a couple of investors sold their shares and defected to opponent companies, it now may also lose support of software developers who made programs for the firm’s iconic product, the BlackBerry.
This comes after Mobile Roadie LLC, developers of apps for the enthusiasts of Miami Dolphins and singer Taylor Swift, and Seesmic Inc, creators of a social-entertainment application, decided to stop developing merchandise for RIM. Purple Forge Corp, another developer who makes political campaign and polling programs, will manufacture BlackBerry versions of its products only on request by customers.
RIM has been putting in efforts to maintain support from developers in face of opposition from the highly popular Apple iPhone and Google’s Android products. Loic Le Meur, CEO Seesmic said that explosive growth of iPhone and Android OS has influenced their decision and they want to allocate their resources where the growth lies.
The Ontario-based firm’s share of global smartphones dropped to 12.9 per cent from 19.7 per cent in the first quarter compared to last year, whereas Apple and Android tripled their share to 36 percent. RIM announced last week their plan to cut jobs after predictions that quarterly revenue will drop for the first time in 9 years. However, RIM spokesperson said that the company continues to make more programs for consumers. Currently, there are 35,000 applications in BlackBerry’s online store, compared to 200,000 apps for Android and 425,000 apps for Apple.
Another factor that has influenced developers’ decision to stop making applications for the Blackberry platform is the complex procedure required to make and approve programs for RIM. Devices of RIM are of different sizes, operating system, and hardware, which makes it very complicated and expensive to create new applications. Touchscreens mixed with thumb wheel and various shortcut buttons apps makes app production a very tough process, Brian Hurley, CEO of Purple Forge further commented. He further said that it’s far easier to make applications for Apple and Android platforms.
The decision became final for Le Meur of Seesmic when he wasn’t able to run his own company’s application on his brand new BlackBerry Playbook tablet. Mobile Roadie customers can design and run their own apps on other platforms, but BlackBerry’s variation restricted this feature. Also, only 2 percent BlackBerry users used Mobile Roadie’s application compared to 50% for Android and iPhone. This sorry state of affairs with respect to developer support is expected to continue next year when RIM plans to introduce a new operating system for its devices called QNX.
