Conveniencing developers to come to BB!0

RIMM is travel around the world trying to convenience to develop for BB10. I was wondering why have not used major announcements to attract developers. I am positive that if RIMM announced that Skype, Netflix, and Instagram will have BB10 apps on Jan 30. The developers sitting on the fence will come because they will likely say "Hey this is really going to happen, BB10 has a real chance to succeed. Look Skype is jumping on board, so should I". What could possibly be the benefit of announcing these apps last second?

Maybe... If they did have someone like Netflix onboard, announcing it might get some of the bigger devs to start moving towards the new platform.

I'd think the opposite would apply to indie devs though. If they announced something like instagram, maybe some small dev who was going to make a photo filter and upload app would say "aw screw it, everyone will just download instagram".

Originally Posted by mikeo007

"aw screw it, everyone will just download instagram".

Great point...if my app was a photo filter app (which it isn't), I would hesitate putting more time and effort into an app that less people will use.

I think that's why RIM has held off on announcing big apps, is to show commitient to the "little people" first. They're the ones who will make the kicka$$ app.

I know what Skype is...show/make me something new!

There are a lot of reasons to hold off on these major announcements.

1. The developer may not WANT word to leak out
2. Early word only gives users yet another excuse to put off getting an OS7 phone
3. Having a number of major software announcements to go along with the product launch helps the new phones look that much more compelling

If a developer is on the fence enough that they're waiting to see if Skype will be there, I don't think RIM wants them at this point anyway.

Originally Posted by mikeo007

Maybe... If they did have someone like Netflix onboard, announcing it might get some of the bigger devs to start moving towards the new platform.

I'd think the opposite would apply to indie devs though. If they announced something like instagram, maybe some small dev who was going to make a photo filter and upload app would say "aw screw it, everyone will just download instagram".

I wouldn't be discouraged by it all if I was a dev. The reason being that instagram its self was a small company to begin with. They werent a huge company. It was pretty indie, then it took off and facebook dropped a Billion on it. The better question is what dev on BB10 will be the maker of the next Billion dollar app? :P