RIM CEO Basically Admits That Android Support Is There To Check The “Lots Of Apps” Box
Research In Motion officially announced today that its forthcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet would support Android apps. — (No, not apps for the new Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” apps designed for tablets …
Context & Ripple Effects
The arc here runs from September 2010, when RIM unveiled the PlayBook tablet with its own QNX-based OS, through a January 2011 BGR exclusive reporting that Android apps would come to the PlayBook and possibly BlackBerry smartphones, to February's video of a RIM rep confirming tablet-side support and new evidence of Android apps running on BlackBerry phones.
Today's official announcement makes it policy rather than leak — and the notable part is the CEO's own framing: Android compatibility exists to check the 'lots of apps' box against rival app-store catalogs. That is an admission that QNX alone cannot yet field a competitive developer ecosystem at launch, and it lands in a market where Apple's iPad already owns the tablet app story and Honeycomb tablets are just arriving.
First-order effects
- PlayBook buyers get access to Android's back catalog at launch instead of waiting on native QNX ports — though the support stops short of Honeycomb, meaning tablet-optimized Android 3.0 apps are out of reach.
- Developers gain a second distribution target with no porting cost, which lowers RIM's barrier to filling its store but also signals to them that building natively for QNX is optional.
Second-order effects
- Apple and Honeycomb tablet makers now face a competitor competing on their app-count turf, forcing the comparison onto hardware, price, and experience rather than catalog size.
- If the February evidence of Android apps running on BlackBerry phones holds into product, RIM's entire device line leans on Google's ecosystem, entangling RIM's fortunes with a platform it does not control.
Third-order effects
- The move normalizes the compatibility layer as the entry strategy for any platform arriving late to an app-driven market — concede the catalog war, rent the incumbent's apps, and hope native development follows users.
- It deepens a pattern already visible since 2010's shift toward Android among major players: app ecosystems, not hardware specs, become the decisive moat, pressuring every second-tier OS vendor to either join Android or wrap it.
The trend: Late-arriving mobile platforms are increasingly renting incumbents' app catalogs through compatibility layers while their native ecosystems mature, making app-store gravity — not hardware — the industry's structural gatekeeper.