Why Did Blackberry Acquire The Astonishing Tribe (TAT)?

**needforbbx** · 12-19-2012, 12:24 PM

Why Did Blackberry Acquire The Astonishing Tribe (TAT)?

Hampus Jakobsson, Cofounder, TAT & Dexplora

TAT was one hundred and eighty people divided in four parts:

Thirty people strong stellar design team (over four hundred UI-design projects to almost all of the mobile world, among others, did the complete UI design for the first version of Google‘s Android), also did some envelope pushing: TAT (www.tat.se) - YouTube
Forty people strong product development team – shipped in five hundred million plus phones from Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, and Nokia.
Fifty UI/app developers who helped TAT’s customers to build phone UIs
Thirty admin/sales/etc – not that interesting for RIM
All but the thirty people team are still in Malmö, Sweden, and develop the UI-layer in BB10 – still called Cascades: Cascades for BlackBerry 10

So – what did RIM get?
1. one of the world’s biggest mobile UI-design teams in one location
2. a tested and proven UI-framework that was one of the most flexible and performant on the mobile market
3. a lot people to make sure speed was there when rubber hit the road

What was RIM missing? They had QNX as a base platform (amazing!) and Torch (great browser), but not a UI-framework and a large design team with a lot of graphic design experience (most mobile manufacturers have a lot of usability people source design).

Why didn’t RIM buy someone else? There wasn’t any alternatives on the product side. Design team – buying a design agency with mobile experience when there are only five to eight in the world and most of the people there like the freedom of working for a twenty people company – not easy … I honestly don’t think there were any choices to buy.

Why Did Blackberry Acquire The Astonishing Tribe (TAT)? - Forbes

**sinfocomar** · 12-19-2012, 12:34 PM

I always thought it was because Blackberry, having dropped previous OS, wanted a complete makeover. TAT was famously in charge of the first iteration of the Android UI.

Check out their amazing projects like the stereo UI here The TAT Blog

**Double_J75** · 12-19-2012, 01:23 PM

I thought they purchased TAT so they could make us a scrapbook app for my playbook.

**robtanz** · 12-19-2012, 02:51 PM

Everyone loves Swedes!

**RubberChicken76** · 12-19-2012, 02:56 PM

I think a lot of these folks writing stories like this don't get the importance of a good UI framework like Cascades.

**BBThemes** · 12-19-2012, 03:11 PM

all i see is a question, not really a concise answer.

As rubberchicken has said though, TAT have spent an awful lot of time on cascades frameworks, sdks and invariablly contributed to all the other sdk`s, and of course theyve styled the overall UI and user experience. not exactly a overnight task lol

**lengend** · 12-19-2012, 03:16 PM

I hope they bring out that front runner app (I think it was that, will provide a link when I get home). It looks awesome and is sooooo smooth.

**BBThemes** · 12-19-2012, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by lengend

I hope they bring out that front runner app (I think it was that, will provide a link when I get home). It looks awesome and is sooooo smooth.

TAT apps shown off generally arent customer useable apps.

this is what confuses people, TAT have been building Cascades and all of its frameworks and the UI/UX. They made the demonstrated apps so that they could show off the abilities of the frameworks they had created, not for `consumer consumption` and for that reason most apps of theirs are fixed function, not variable code.
Take for example the webworks weather app (below). its a demo, thats it. if you load the files for it from github, it doesnt work in a real world environment. its coded to demo only and let devs know whats achieveable.

So no, you probably wont see TAT apps like all their demos, but thats why.

**needforbbx** · 12-19-2012, 05:46 PM

Originally Posted by RubberChicken76

I think a lot of these folks writing stories like this don't get the importance of a good UI framework like Cascades.

I think this person gets the importance. The original posting was written by Hampus Jakobsson, Cofounder, TAT & Dexplora

**RECOOL** · 12-19-2012, 08:11 PM

Who you think designed cascades the framework for BB10 ?? Who you think built this UI/UX who do you think is responisble for the consumer side of things?? Seriously wake the F up TAT are the engineers of BB10 they are not just sitting around in R&D scratching their balls thinking of apps.Additionally there's probably so may apps they have built I hope RIM lets us download them in the store.

If you havent noticed we have ''balance'' work and personal sides on the phone.So far all we have been shown is the work functionality side of things come launch all the consumer play/personal stuff will be shown TAT will show their stuff.

Lol how you not see that they are now part of RIM enginneer team for BB10.

**greatwiseone** · 12-19-2012, 08:19 PM

We all know TAT's driving Cascades and the main UI for BB10. Apparently there were some conflicts between TAT and RIM Waterloo UI folks, but it's not surprising given that it is always difficult to integrate a newly acquired company. In any event, I was listening to a webcast (a Qt developer webcast I think) where Alec Saunders talked about why they had to adopt Qt. I really think that's the reason why Cascades got massively delayed, the need to architecture it such that developers can use either C++ or QML when developing in Cascades. A lot of concept apps that TAT builds are not really that efficient (from a workflow perspective). Once the Cascades stuff is done, I expect to see more TAT influences in individual apps. Of course, we don't even know how quite a few of the key apps look like (Maps, video editor, organizer, etc.), and so we may see more cool stuff there.

**maam** · 12-19-2012, 08:55 PM

Because they can eh lol but seriously, maybe they are saving it for the other blackberry10 eh. Cant use all your secret on your first move eh lol

**GreenLeaf182** · 12-20-2012, 01:14 AM

Originally Posted by Double_J75

I thought they purchased TAT so they could make us a scrapbook app for my playbook.

This.

**Saiga** · 12-20-2012, 09:36 AM

I'm not sure why RIM bought TAT. They are supposed to be great at UI designs and I know they did all of the cascades stuff. But its kinda disappointing to see that they're talents are just being used to copy what they had previously done for MeeGo. You would think that RIM would have TAT come up with something more original for BB10, but I guess that isn't what they wanted. Maybe RIM bought TAT just because they would be the go to people for a company wanting to copy MeeGo.