Originally Posted by
Troy Tiscareno ...said someone who obviously knows very little about app development and support costs. Initial development of an app is only a small part of that app's total cost. There has to be constant on-going maintenance, testing, added features, updated design, and most importantly, support. All of that costs money, and for a "bigger" app, that means having to, at the very least, hire several full-time employees. Do you have any idea what the total costs are for a developer that makes $100k a year? It's more like $200-250k when you factor in recruitment, office space, equipment, taxes, benefits, and so on. Even support people make $60k/yr in California, where that is barely enough to live.
This is why the only factor that most app companies care about is MARKETSHARE. With a large marketshare, that investment in employees and projects can be repaid exponentially. Without a large marketshare, it won't be.
Successful companies understand this. BB10 represents 0.1% of the US market. That's not enough for devs to care about, even if the costs of initial app development are paid for by BB, because the on-going costs will kill them.
You know why most people don't own their own airplane? It isn't because the plane itself costs a ton of money - many can be had for the price of a nice luxury car, or a bit more. It's the ONGOING maintenance costs that will kill you. You may have to spend 50% of the plane's cost every year just to keep it in flyable condition, and if you allow it's flight certification to lapse, it may cost more than the plane's worth to recertify it.
Apps are a lot like planes: the initial cost is only a fraction of the total cost. For a "free" or "low-cost" app, the only way to make money is by having a HUGE user base. 0.1% of the market doesn't even register on the radar, when they can look at Android and see 80% (50% in the US) or iOS and see 15% (48% in the US).
BB was prepared to "buy" apps, but the "important" devs simply weren't interested, because they did much the same math as I did above.