

Make coders develop Blackberry apps, says firm's boss - percept
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30932399

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kabdib
Microsoft subsidized development of some popular apps for Windows Phone (e.g.,
Angry Birds). They paid for these. They were necessary to claw away at some
market share.

Chen seems to think he's entitled . . . and this is one reason why BlackBerry
is utterly doomed. Now I wouldn't develop a BB app even _if_ he paid me :-)

But while we're at it, maybe we _do_ need some regulation, so we can hold app
developers at gunpoint (because that's what laws do, in the final argument)
and force them to cough up the goods. In fact, I have an old Palm Pilot VII in
a box somewhere that is being discriminated against and would be perfectly
useful if only it had some apps... </snark>

~~~
GrinningFool
They did subsidize a number of major apps that come over to BlackBerry.

~~~
kabdib
On the other hand, it's probably cheaper to buy a congressman or senator than
it is to pay a developer to port an app.

~~~
declan
Exactly right. I noticed this many times when living in DC. There's even a
study that puts numbers on the ROI for politician-purchasing:

 _" In a recent study, researchers Raquel Alexander and Susan Scholz
calculated the total amount the corporations saved from the lower tax rate.
They compared the taxes saved to the amount the firms spent lobbying for the
law. Their research showed the return on lobbying for those multinational
corporations was 22,000 percent. That means for every dollar spent on
lobbying, the companies got $220 in tax benefits."_
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget-s...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget-
stocks-or-bonds-invest-in-a-lobbyist)

~~~
droope
holy shit

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walkamages
Developing on the BlackBerry 10 OS has actually been a pleasant experience,
but that was for fun rather than profit, as the numbers do not add up in their
store vs the rest of the market. Their android runtime is very good and most
apps run well on it, with the confidence of a modicum more sandboxing than a
native android phone. I think BlackBerry's only real hope now is to get the
phone into the hands of people for little to no cost and hold developer events
and contests. It will cost them to have a dev community, like Microsoft
learnt, but without it, they will wither even more so.

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pyre
Seeing as it's a letter to Congress, maybe the phrase "Those who can't
innovate, legislate" is apt...

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kcole16
I almost don't believe he actually feels that way, but is simply so desperate
at this point that he'll try anything. It'll be interesting to see if this
news affects investor sentiment.

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mijoharas
If this weren't from bbc I would assume that someone had misquoted the onion
as a proper news source again. This argument seems pretty preposterous.

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cblock811
Sorry but maybe Apple and Android don't care about BlackBerry because it's
going under. Nobody wants to hang out with a loser and that's what they've
become. His whining doesn't help.

I'm sure turning around BlackBerry is a monumental task but I feel like he
should be focused on innovating and leading and let his PR team do the writing
for public statements.

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ksk
Wow, that's a horrible headline. Did anyone actually read the letter? His
position is far less extreme. All hes essentially advocating for is open
protocols so that popular services aren't locked down to a single platform.
It's an interesting question whether government should mandate
interoperability.

~~~
hvs
That's not what he says:

    
    
      Unlike BlackBerry, which allows iPhone users to download and
      use our BBM service, Apple does not allow BlackBerry or 
      Android users to download Apple’s iMessage messaging 
      service. Netflix, which has forcefully advocated for carrier 
      neutrality, has discriminated against BlackBerry customers
      by refusing to make its streaming movie service available 
      to them.

~~~
ksk
His phrasing is clumsy because hes not a programmer. The issue is that its
rather "impossible" to create BB apps for some services because they're locked
down. If NetFlix and Apple were to open the API, that would be enough for
anyone (including BB employees) to create the app themselves. I don't think BB
is so poor that they couldn't hire a few devs to get the apps written.

~~~
moeedm
Netflix and Apple don't have to open up anything if they don't want to. It's
their service and ultimately they can choose which platforms to support. This
is just whining from BlackBerry.

~~~
ksk
>It's their service and ultimately they can choose which platforms to support.

I think you're thoroughly confused. A documented protocol can be implemented
on any general purpose platform.

Remember the binary document formats from Microsoft? People had to reverse
engineer that shit once upon a time. Not anymore, its all XML now. Microsoft
didn't have to "support" Linux. They merely had to document their format.
Certainly, OOXML has its own problems but these days almost ANY
service/application can read/write MS document formats.

~~~
moeedm
What are you going on about? Apple and Netflix offer a service, not a protocol
that should be used by everyone. They decide which platform to support — this
isn't about any protocol.

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nextw33k
Initially my reaction was the same as the herd, however on reflection I see
that he's trying to address a problem in the mobile space.

Really the mobile phone market is currently a duopoly and that's bad for
consumers. We are now getting past the initial innovation part of the curve
and starting to see level growth in terms of the number of devices in the
market place and platform changes.

What we need to start thinking about is perhaps a standard on which Apps are
built. Right now its like the 90s where you'd build a site for IE and one for
Netscape.

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jevinskie
If someone was foolish enough to still own BBRY, I think this incident should
be evidence enough to get out while you can. What an incredibly stupid thing
for a CEO to say.

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lxfontes
I'm in favour of competition, but this sounds like "Music industry should be
forced to release cassette tapes"

BB was ahead of the curve, had its glory days, dropped the ball on not
focusing on enterprise and now it is struggling to find its place.

I do think we need a 3rd big player in this market (other than apple/google).
Feels like innovation has became a battle of thinness / big screens.

~~~
greggyb
Microsoft is a big player in terms of resources, though not market share (2%?)
in smart phones.

Based on their Windows 10 announcement yesterday, they are pushing universal
device integration, which should help them in the enterprise market. If they
deliver, what they'll have is a full stack of productivity, line-of-business,
and analytics platforms through a unified UI for any device. Most enterprises
already run Windows and if mobile/tablet integration is seamless with a
Microsoft platform, that should be a large gain in market share.

The two big questions are if they can deliver well on the promise, and if they
can leverage enterprise adoption to increase their consumer market share.

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jpinkerton88
WhatsApp only supporting Google Chrome for their web client is silly. Should
they be allowed to look silly? Yes.

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wooyi
What Mr. Chen claims as "discrimination" or non-net neutrality is not that at
all. Net neutrality is not about making apps available for all platforms.

On a side note, has anyone developed a BB app? Maybe he should start there
first.

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codezero
Previous discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8927539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8927539)

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fidotron
Wow. Ignorant or wilfully stupid?

We might as well argue that Blackberry be forced to run a common OS.

~~~
kenrikm
Like Android.. haha. Seriously this is one of the most ridiculous things I've
ever read that was not a April Fools Joke.

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wglb
So would their position be different if they were still the market leader?

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programminggeek
Well, time to stop supporting BlackBerry.

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x13
forcing != free market

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cheezit
lol, no.

