The contrast couldn’t be starker. Apple last week sold out its developer conference in two hours, despite the fact tickets cost U.S.$1,599 and 5,000 seats were available. RIM is seeing far less interest in its BlackBerry Jam conference, held this week: It’s managed to snag just 1,000 developers, even though it’s giving out BB10 prototypes and charging just U.S.$299 a head.
Bloomberg reports RIM’s general show, BlackBerry App World, is doing much better, however. Held less than a mile from BlackBerry Jam, it is on track to host 5,000 attendees, close to last year’s numbers. Still until RIM’s new BB10 devices roll out, sometime before the end of the year, it most likely will struggle. Bloomberg also quotes a recent poll of developers finding 89 percent very interested in writing software for the iPhone, 79 percent for Android, but just 16 percent for BlackBerry.
Yankee Group Senior Analyst Chris Marsh comments
“This aligns with our own survey data which is showing a sharp drop in both consumer and business interest in BlackBerry as a platform. However, RIM is far from out for the count. Alongside showcasing some good UX innovations in the upcoming BB10, RIM also announced today during Blackberry World a series of partnerships with development environments such as Appcelerator’s Titanium in an attempt to expand its developer community. RIM also announced that its mobile app submissions were up 226 percent over the last year, with PlayBook apps specifically up 240 percent in Q4 2011. Only time will tell, but some strong announcements around its business mobility services also keeps them in the game to capitalize on the market shift toward mobile enterprise application development. It will all be about execution this year for RIM, but it has some good pieces in place on which to rejuvenate its appeal.”
