In a fight between David and Goliath, you’re always going to root for David. It’s human nature to support the underdog. So, when Apple came about announcing that they’re going to launch a really expensive phone that would be against Industry giants like Nokia, Motorola and RIM (BlackBerry now), everyone was on Apple’s side. Soon, the iPhone enjoyed mass adoption in the world and Apple’s underdog tag began to vanish. Then, came Google’s Android, which would take on Apple, using the licensing model, and everyone rooted for it, because it was going against big guy Apple. Since then, with about 4 major iterations and many multiple sub-iterations of the OS, Android now has the majority marketshare in mobile OSs, leaving Google far from being an underdog.
It’s almost come a full circle and the smartphone OS wars now have given the erstwhile biggies the underdog tag. Now, when Microsoft launches its mobile OS, people look to it with promise. RIM’s rebranding to BlackBerry and it partially doing away with its QWERTY phones was a sign that the foundations that the company was built on was shifting under their feet and if the rumours are to be believed, they’re even looking for someone to buy them out.
What went wrong to this once great company that defined cell phones for the enterprise? To get an idea about BB10 from an Indian context, I did some asking around. Should you, as an Indian app startup build a BB10 app? Here's what I found -
The developers actually liked it to an extent
The developers actually liked the platform quite a bit, mainly for two reasons – it was based on the Qt framework and porting Android apps to BB10 could be done in a few clicks. Hiemanshu Sharma, an Android developer with Avatar ROM said, “Qt is quite easy to pick up – It's an amazing library with a lot of support and very mature and the best framework out there.” Even Annie Mathews, SAARC head of BlackBerry, told us the same in an interview late last year, and many hackathons were conducted, emphasizing the same.
The Android app porting was actually an effective move. Quite a few of our mobile startups, like SignEasy and DelightCircle, to name a few, took to porting their popular Android and iOS apps to the BlackBerry platform. As BB10 was a new platform, many didn't want to invest time in building a native BB 10 app, but porting gave them the incentive of having their app on another platform with minimal effort. A lot of startups built ports and while there was a slight compromise in the performance of the app, the work needed to have presence on another platform was much lesser compared to others.
Add cash incentives like the BlackBerry Developer 10k commitment, (closed now) the developers had enough of an incentive to build apps for this new platform. And like we all know, apps play a major role in a consumer buying decision, when it came to smartphones.
So the platform was there, the apps were there, but there were no breakaway app successes, at least from India. Most developers reported a lukewarm or lackluster reception for their apps on the BlackBerry apps world.
There were far too few consumers.
Why didn't it attract consumers?
The general opinion about BB10 as an OS was not bad among the public. It sure was radically different from what people were used to. Some people didn't like that as they were used to other operating systems. The build quality was premium and its interactions, (once you got used to it, that is) was nothing like you've ever used before. So what was wrong? Here's what Amrit Sanjeev, staff engineer at Intuit, had to say, “I think the OS was on far too few devices. Even if there were enough of them, there was nothing special enough about the OS that would make people change to BB 10.”
Gotopal founder, Ramaprassana Chellamuthu reiterated the same point - "OSs like BB 10, Ubuntu etc, cater to some specific need, but don't emotionally connect with a wide audience. They can't do well mainstream if they play so niche."
The price point was another concern. At 40k + INR, not a lot of consumers were willing to part with that kind of money for a new and nascent OS. But if that was the case, then how does India spend so much on iOS devices? Obviously there was more to this, and I got my answer from two people, who want to remain anonymous.
The platform
All major smartphone Oss didn't happen overnight. A manager of a major app store told me at an event, “The OS game is a long one. If you're in it for the short term, then forget about it. What you see as Apple's iOS platform today started over 20 years ago at NeXt computers. It takes a long time for a platform to mature and provide real value to a user.”
I didn't fully understand what she meant by it, but later on, a product manager at an ad network told me, “An OS and an app store doesn't cut it anymore. You need to have an ecosystem. By that, I mean a combination of products and services that plug into an OS to make it what it is. Look at Google; they were search, mail, browser and a whole host of other things that beautifully plugged into Android. And the same with Apple. The benefit of these products adds that much more value to the OS.”
This starts the chain reaction, getting app developers to build apps for the platform, which in turn attracts more consumers to the product, resulting in more devices bought. Of course, it isn't this simple, but these are the basics to an exent. I'm sure BlackBerry know this, and they're probably working towards building a platform as well.
So, what does this mean to you as an app developer? Should you build a BB10 app or not? Well, we'll let an app developer answer that question for you -
Do it anyway
Sunil Patro, who co-founded the company that made SignEasy, an app that allows you to sign digital documents, says that you should give it a shot. He says, “While I agree that dedicating resources to build a native app for BB10 is not practical for a startup, the porting option is quite an attractive proposition. With 2 weeks effort, we built an Android ported BB10 app for SignEasy and we have been seeing about 200 to 300 downloads every day and at least a 100 users sign up.”
Now, Sunil also shared that this reception is good because it is an enterprise facing app and BlackBerry has always been strong among enterprise users. But he says, “The effort to result ratio pretty high, if it's a port you're working on.”
But when asked if he'd build a native app, he said, “I'd wait a little more. The traction isn't encouraging enough for a native app.”
Well, there you have it. What has your experience with BB 10 been?
