RIM

Average app in Marketplace gets 80% more downloads than iPhone app store

September 8, 2011 | By Surur

Research2Guidance have released some numbers suggesting once again that the Windows Phone 7 marketplace deserves attention from developers.

They show, compared to the iOS App store, each app will get 80% more downloads on average, ie. a random app on iOs may get 100 downloads per month on iOS and 180 in Marketplace.

This of course is due to the hypercompetitive iOS market, with more than 400,000 other apps to compete with.

While some have joked Windows Phone 7 has more apps than users, in fact with 30,000 apps and 5 million + users, Windows Phone 7 actually has much less available apps per user, making it a significantly easier environment for a developer to compete in. Of course Marketplace has less potential for run-away hits which make random developers rich, but for the average developer it may be a better option than the crowded iOS and Android platform.

Symbian also sees high downloads per app, due to a massive legacy user base and small number of apps, despite relatively unengaged users, with RIMs store benefiting from a similar element.

The fact that Windows Phone 7, with only a fraction of the installed base as Symbian or RIM, and apps stores of roughly the same size, has downloads per app in between the two suggests Windows Phone 7 users are voracious app downloaders, much more so than Symbian and Blackberry users, and as the user base of Windows Phone 7 users grow developers will also see significantly more profit on the platform also.

See more data at Research2Guidance.com here.

Via TechRadar.com

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Canaccord analysts: Carrier support and OEMs focus on Windows Phone 7 as a third competitive smartphone ecosystem

September 7, 2011 | By Surur

RIM may not know they are dead already.

Microsoft has said from the start they want Windows Phone 7 to be the third major ecosystem, and it seems, slowly but surely, they are winning over the market to the idea.

Michael Walkley and Matthew Ramsay of Canaccord Genuity have released a rather pessimistic report on RIM, noting despite strong initial demand for the refreshed Torch and Bold models “These new products have not altered trends of ongoing consumer share losses.”

“With our checks indicated increased carrier support and [manufacturer] focus on [Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Phone 7] as a third competitive smartphone ecosystem versus [Google Inc.'s Android] and [Apple's iOS], we believe RIM with its QNX strategy faces a steep uphill climb to regain consumer mindshare,” they concluded.

Nokia has itself abandoned their Symbian and Meego efforts to place their ecosystem bets on a more complete and competitive solution like Windows Phone 7, and Achim Berg from Microsoft has recently said the prediction of 20% market share in 2015 may be “conservative.”

RIM on the other hand has recently been urged by share holders to sell off its patent trove as a way to raise capital and share holder value, a clear sign of lack of confidence in the ability of the company to execute now and in the future.

Opinion: Its Time For RIM To Make The Important Decision

September 6, 2011 | By Pradeep

Research In Motion, the company behind BlackBerry smartphones is under much pressure to deliver products and show returns to its investors. Once they were the leading smartphone seller in US, but now they are slipping to No.3 position while sales of their key products are dipping. What happened inside the company? Its the same problem what Nokia faced just months ago. They are trying to stick with their legacy Blackberry OS which is out-dated and trying to push more and more products with the same OS. Of course, they are adding features by each release on the same old crap, so the developers have lost faith in them. Still they are developing good hardware but it gets sublimed by the poor software underneath it.

According to reports, they are even working on a brand new OS based on QNX technology which they acquired about a year ago. Again, just compare Nokia’s situation a year ago with RIM. RIM’s Blackberry OS = Nokia’s Symbian, RIM’s QNX based OS = Nokia’s Meego. Nokia clearly realized that their old strategy is going to fail miserably because the war of platforms have transformed into a war of ecosystems. Nokia felt that it can’t create an competing ecosystem against Apple, Microsoft and Google in time, so aligned with Microsoft after considering Google.

RIM may do the same by dropping Blackberry OS completely and go with either Android or Windows Phone and make the upcoming QNX based OS as their future disruptive platform. Its under urge to act because some investors have raised ideas to sell BlackBerry for patents, shake the leadership, etc. Instead of getting sold to someone for its IP, its better to adapt some ecosystem and keep the innovation engine running.

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Analysts confirm Windows Phone 7 as the 3rd ecosystem, but remain guarded

August 27, 2011 | By Surur

Sorry RIM and Symbian, but both of your ecosystems have already been counted out.

Despite lack of rip-roaring sales figures, the steady progress of the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem in gathering developers, OEMs and distribution has prompted analysts to name it as the 3rd mobile ecosystem, after the iPhone and Android.

“Windows Phone has a good chance to become the third ecosystem but the question is how far it will be from the two leaders,” said Michael Vakulenko, research partner with London mobile consultancy VisionMobile, quoted in Bloomberg.

“People will take Windows Phone 7 as the third one to go for but I don’t think it’s going to stop many people from building iPhone or Android apps,” said Hume of Future Platforms.

Vakulenko echoed similar thoughts, saying “Any developer who decides to invest in Windows Phone 7 needs to consider alternatives and that’s always Android and iPhone.”

“App publishers we’re working with seem to be much more enthusiastic about Windows Phone 7 than Symbian,” said Offscreen Technologies CEO Harri Myllynen. “Still, Apple and Android are number one and this will be a long-tail platform. I’m not aware of any developer investing in a big way yet.”

Stephen Elop has emphasised with the purchase of Motorola by Google, OEMs should be paying even more attention to Windows Phone 7.

"The very first reaction I had was very clearly the importance of the third ecosystem and the importance of the partnership that we announced on February 11, it is more clear than ever before," Elop said.

"By adopting Windows Phone as our primary smartphone platform we believe we can deliver a global ecosystem that goes beyond what exists today in terms of hardware, software, services and apps," Elop said.

"Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unrivalled global reach and scale. It’s now a three-horse race."

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Zune desktop agent uses less memory than iTunes Helper, Samsung Kies or RIM Launcher

August 27, 2011 | By Surur

The iTunes client is famously a resource hog on Windows, which makes it an unsurprising reason why some people choose not to go down the iOS ecosystem route.

SaudiWP7 have taken a hit for the team by actually loading a synchronization client for all 4 major smartphone OSs on their desktop – iPhone, Samsung Kies for Android, Blackberry and Zune for Windows Phone 7.

As can be seen from the screen shot, the the Kies launcher is the heaviest at nearly 20 MB, followed by iTunes Launcher at 3 MB. RIM’s client uses a minimal 1.4 MB, and the Zune launcher a tiny 1 MB.

While the memory usage of the sync client is likely inconsequential to most people, it does show that the care and attention the Microsoft dev team lavished on the phone has extended to the desktop client also.

Via saudiWP7.com

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Stuck with a Blackberry? Windows Phone 7 skin now available

July 18, 2011 | By Surur

WP7-op-BlackBerry There are no more out-dated phones that RIM’s Blackberries, with user interfaces which owe more to pagers than anything from the 21st century.

No wonder only 26% of users are very satisfied with their handsets, and only 4% of new buyers intend to get a new RIM phone.

If you are unlucky enough to be stuck with a Blackberry you can still get a small taste of Windows phone 7, with this new skin called Mo7 by drkapprentice designs.

The skin is available in 7 colours,four opacity settings and is suitable for both touch and non-touch devices.

The skin is only $1.99, down from $5.99, but you might just want to do yourself a favour by springing for the real thing for not much from your local carrier.

The app can be found here.

Via allaboutphones.nl.

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Does Windows Phone 7 already have more apps than Blackberry?

July 14, 2011 | By Surur

On two occasions now, including yesterday at WPC 11 Microsoft said Windows Phone 7 already has more apps than RIM’s Blackberry OS, despite the 18 month head start.

Just adding up the numbers on RIM’s App World website, with 28305 apps+ games and 9462 themes, it seems RIM still has the upper hand over the 24352 apps in Marketplace.

However of the 28305 apps in App World 11681 are ebooks, a full 41%. Only 14% of the apps in Marketplace are ebooks.

As can be seen from the graph, in nearly every other category except business and music and audio apps Windows Phone 7 has nearly the same or more apps.

It is likely in the next two months, excluding themes, the absolute number of Windows Phone 7 apps will exceed the number of Blackberry apps, but even now it is probably accurate to say you can find more apps in Marketplace than App World.

See the raw data after the break.

Continue reading →

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Windows Phone 7 vs Blackberry speed of development demoed

July 4, 2011 | By Surur

Update: We have been asked to remove the video by the creator.

The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace is set to zoom past the Blackberry App World in the next few months , and the above demo by Max Paulousky by shows exactly why – much better tools on Windows Phone 7.

According to an unnamed Blackberry executive Blackberry’s tools are like “a rundown 1990?s Ford Explorer”, meaning this simple project to create a RSS feed reading app takes 1/3 less time on Windows Phone 7 than Blackberry.

Add to this the huge fragmentation between the large number of Blackberry models, and this means the cost of supporting the Blackberry range is just not worth it for many developers. No wonder some of them are dropping support for the venerable messaging devices.

Developers desert Blackberry

June 28, 2011 | By Surur

Bloomberg reports on more developers fleeing the Blackberry App store and platform itself.

Purple Forge Corp., which makes programs for political campaigns and polling, will stop building BlackBerry versions of its apps unless customers request it.

“As soon as RIM brought in a touchscreen and mixed it with a thumbwheel, a keyboard and shortcut keys, it made it really difficult and expensive to develop across devices,” said Purple Forge CEO Brian Hurley. “What Apple scored big on is having a touch screen and a button and that’s it.”

RIM’s devices have different screens sizes, varied operating systems and several ways to navigate, from a physical keyboard to touchscreen to a scroll button.

Mobile Roadie LLC, which makes apps for fans of the Miami Dolphins and country singer Taylor Swift, have decided to stop making products for RIM. In an interview, CEO Michael Schneider said users would blame them for inconveniences like distorted images on different-sized screens.

“At the end of the day, I even felt like developing for BlackBerry could be hurting our reputation,” Schneider said.

Fragmentation appears to be the biggest issue, a problem usually synonymous with Android, but in fact most apt for Blackberry also.

Purple Forge Hurley said “In deploying Apple applications, there are very few surprises,” “In Android, there are increasingly more surprises. But in BlackBerry, there are immediately lots of gotchas across the board.”

The decision to no longer develop for Blackberry may however go largely unnoticed by Blackberry users, and not because of competitors. Blackberry users simply do not use apps in any case.

“When we put an application in the field, there was a 20- to-1 difference between Apple and BlackBerry downloads,” said Purple Forge’s Hurley.

Mobile Roadie’s CEO Michael Schneider concurs.

“We were putting a ton of resources into something users were not engaging in,” he said.

Schneider said less than 2 percent of BlackBerry users interacted with Mobile Roadie’s applications, compared with more than 50 percent of iPhone and Android users.

Windows Phone 7 is currently making a play for the 3rd big mobile ecosystem, and provides choice while fighting fragmentation with strict guidelines for OEMs and will benefit from developers having more attention to lavish on the new platform in favour of Blackberry OS, especially when the volume of Windows Phone 7 handsets hopefully increase next year.

Seesmic drops support for Blackberry, focussing on popular platforms like Windows Phone 7

June 20, 2011 | By Surur

In a note posted on their website Seesmic has announced that they will be dropping support for RIM’s embattled Blackberry platform.

They write:

Important update for Blackberry users

Blackberry users, we have important news we would like to share:

Effective June 30th, Seesmic will discontinue support for Blackberry in order to focus development efforts on our most popular mobile platforms: Android,iOS and Windows Phone 7.

We encourage those effected by this change to try out Seesmic for Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7, as well as Seesmic Desktop and Web.

Sincerely,

Team Seesmic

RIM, who lost half of its market capitalization over the last 6 months, and which is now worth less that $13.5 billion, is believed to have lost 18% of its US subscribers in the last year, and is one of the most fragmented platforms, with numerous versions of its operating system in circulation, making it one of the most complex and expensive platforms to support.

The withdrawal of support by developers will be seen as another blow against the company, and will do nothing to halt the slide in the share price of the company, already down nearly 30% since last week.

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RIM now worth only $14.45 billion, should Microsoft buy?

June 18, 2011 | By Surur

rimdying

3 years ago RIM was worth more than $70 billion. Today the still proud company is worth less than 1/5 of that value, $14.45 billion. Even then there were rumours that Microsoft was looking at buying RIM, and now with the company by comparison extremely cheap, the question arises again.

Buying RIM, who is now worth less than double Microsoft’s recent Skype purchase, would offer Microsoft unprecedented access to business communications, carrier relationships and even consumer relationships, and unlike Nokia a brand that means something in USA.

Of course RIM is in this position because they are losing their hold on this very market, and Microsoft may well just be catching a falling knife, but then it is a very cheap knife, with the company’s price less than 5 times of its annual earnings, which is pretty ridiculous for a tech company.

If Microsoft did buy the company they could run it as a going concern and strip it for its assets while transitioning their customers and technology to Windows Phone. Whether this will be worth the trouble and expense (estimated at $17 billion is a buyout premium) is of course not clear but such a deal would certainly have many attractive aspects, especially with Dell as a Blackberry challenger seriously fizzling away.

Do our readers think the time for a deal has come? Let us know below.

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Goldman Sachs : “We were also surprised by the extent to which Windows Phone is gaining momentum.”

June 13, 2011 | By Surur

momentum We must admit, due to our high expectations for Windows Phone 7, we are sometimes disappointed it is not setting the world on fire sales-wise.

Maybe our expectations need to be reset, as Goldman Sachs’s Simona Jankowski see things very differently.

Commenting on the competitive threats to Blackberry’s market share she noted that Windows Phone 7 was an increasingly viable competitor.

“We were also surprised by the extent to which Windows Phone is gaining momentum.” she said before downgrading her price target for RIM from $50 to $40, based on “RIM’s rapidly deteriorating business metrics”.

RIM has been increasingly weighed down by an aging product line and operating system, and was recently ambushed by iOS 5’s new iMessage system.

Of course Windows Phone 7.5 with its deep native Messenger, Skype, Facebook and Twitter integration offers much more than iMessage in a much more open platform, and is expected to reach volume in 2012 with Nokia’s adoption. However with Jankowski already seeing momentum maybe RIM needs to be looking out even before then.

Via Barrons.com

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Another look at Steve Ballmer at Blackberry World 2011

May 6, 2011 | By Surur

Above we have another, fuller video of Steve Ballmer at Blackberry World, where their Bing partnership was announced.

In the video he makes it clear that it is about extending their cloud services and access enterprise customers.

Do our readers feel Microsoft’s partnership threatens Windows Phone 7 uptake? Let us know below.

Via WPCentral.com

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