Everybody’s jumping on the application store bandwagon. Today, via CrunchGear, come screen shots of the BlackBerry Application Center. Apparently set to debut with the BlackBerry Storm and OS 4.7, this store differs from Apple and Google’s offerings in that “All application data will be stored at the carriers’ locale; RIM is totally out of the loop as far as that goes. …carriers can put the applications they want on their own little store.”
If true, that’s a mistake. The appeal of the AppStore is that it goes around the carrier. As a developer, the last thing I want is to go on bended knee to 180 carriers to ask them to carry my software. Been there, done that, got the rugburn.
BlackBerry developers can take heart in the fact that RIM already has competition on the store front. BerryStore has launched, and has already scooped up some of the most popular applications. Are the carriers gutsy (or stupid) enough to try to block it? Wait and see.
I’m reminded of Peter Seller’s hilariously dark sketch “Auntie Rotter”.
“Now now children. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have TWO daddys?”
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Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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The only advantage to the Carrier inclusive store front is unified billing. That is the golden egg and something Apple can’t do. The only reason the iTunes app store works is that Apple has built the device, the market and the ecosystem so millions of people have an account. RIM has nothing even close to this, so a RIM run store would be at a serious disadvantage.
I think this is the only logical solution for RIM at this point.
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