BlackBerry 10 sees 15,000 app submissions in less than two days
RIM will be facing an uphill battle when it does eventually launch BlackBerry 10, but the company is making sure it'll have a healthy selection of apps from the get-go by incentivizing developers.
Context & Ripple Effects
RIM enters 2013 with a launch window it has spent months setting up: more than 50 carriers were already testing BlackBerry 10 as of October 2012, and the company had signaled in August that the OS would be ready for licensing rather than kept proprietary. The missing piece was software — an app catalog dense enough to survive against iOS and Android on day one.
This submission surge is RIM's answer: paying developers to port has pulled in 15,000 apps in under two days, a striking number given that BlackBerry App World's own stats showed six million daily downloads and claimed per-user profitability above Android as recently as February 2012 — a base worth arming, if developers believe it will convert to a new OS. Eight outlets picked the story up the same day, and the volume of submissions itself became the headline.
First-order effects
- Developers now have a direct financial reason to prioritize BlackBerry 10 ports over other platforms, and RIM gets a credible launch-catalog claim — 15,000 submissions — to show carriers who are already deep into device testing.
- RIM must now review and certify that flood of submissions before launch, turning its incentive spend into a quality-control workload.
Second-order effects
- Carriers get ammunition to position BlackBerry 10 as a viable third ecosystem in their lineups, strengthening the case RIM made when it said the OS would be open to licensing deals with other manufacturers.
- Apple and Google face no direct threat from the number itself, but RIM's guaranteed-money model pressures them indirectly: developers learn that small platforms will pay for their time, raising the price of attention across every app store pitch.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, third-platform launches become bidding wars for developer labor rather than technology reveals — catalog depth bought with cash replacing organic network effects as the entry ticket to relevance against iOS and Android.
- The durability question shifts from 'can RIM attract apps' to whether paid submissions convert into sustained engagement on App World, where RIM's own 2012 data argued its users were unusually profitable buyers.
The trend: Mobile platform challengers are increasingly buying developer catalogs outright through incentive programs, treating app-porting subsidies as the cost of admission against iOS and Android's network effects.