1. Joy1980's Avatar
    Hi,

    I am a fan of both Microsoft and RIM and I can see the similarities in both. To me, RIM is the Microsoft of the smartphone, except that they don't have the stickiness of Windows. They both move slow simply for the reason that they cater primarily to the enterprise world, where change is taken only in small doses very infrequently.

    But I have been watching MS and how they have been approaching the developers of mobile apps and are courting them to bring the Windows Phone platform. Their philosophy seems to be is to get all 'right' apps and get the 'right' developers and the rest will follow. I believe that RIM should follow this example and court developers to bring them to the platform.

    However, before they do this, I believe that they should determine what their brand identity is and only approach developers who develop that would help push forward the platform as a whole, instead of just being a bunch of apps that just make up the catalog.

    What do I mean? For example, the Smoothie app that has BBM integration that allows you meet new contacts. RIM could take inspiration from these apps and find a way to bring this native to the platform. Yes, I understand people may believe that this might drive developers away but I think that it may even attract more developers.

    If you are a developer, would you like to just make money off of a platform or making money from the platform and have your app give the platform maker ideas on how to improve the platform. Have your app and your idea help improve the platform or to have the bragging rights of 'my app was so useful that RIM bought the rights to the app and made it native'.

    My question is twofold: What do you think RIM's brand identity is or should be? and given that brand identity, which apps/developers that are currently not on the platform should RIM try to entice towards the platform?
    08-22-11 12:32 PM
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