Developers’ confidence in RIM waning

There’s this chart. It’s not a good looking chart. That’s unfortunate, because it’s a potentially meaningful one. We know that developers largely hold the key to the future of BlackBerry. RIM can create a wonderful, revolutionary platform. But unless they get the developers on board, they don’t have much of a future. (Of course, creating a revolutionary platform will probably attract developers, as well as consumers.) Yet it appears that their confidence in all BlackBerry platforms is waning. All Things D has a chart, compiled by Baird Equity Research, that shows the grim details. Even a year ago, developers had more confidence in Windows Phone 7 than they did in BlackBerry 10. In fact, they continue to have a more optimistic long-term outlook for Windows Phone 7, despite its numerous complaints, than BlackBerry 10. It’s a real head scratcher. The relatively high numbers for Windows 8 doesn’t bode well for RIM, either. Microsoft is going to beat RIM to the market, which gives it a further advantage. Surprisingly, only iOS saw increased confidence in Q2, 2012. Even Android has seen a drop-off, albeit slight. That chart doesn’t look good, either. It’s understandable that the long-term outlook for the legacy BlackBerry platform is trending downwards, because it’s on its way out. But BlackBerry 10? It’s quite disconcerting to see it go from a 5.0 a year ago to under 4.0 today. This doesn’t by any means put RIM under. It’s just a survey of 200 developers, which isn’t even that large a sample. But considering the importance of third-party developers for the success of Blackberry 10, it can’t be at all encouraging.

About the Author

Joe Pawlikowski is the Senior Editor at MobileMoo.com and has been covering the mobile industry full time since 2007. When he's not writing about the tech scene, he can be found discussing his personal love - baseball (and more specifically the New York Yankees) as well as writing on his personal blog.