back to article RIM begs devs: Build for BlackBerry 10, we'll bung you $10K

Developers who get BlackBerry 10 apps in quick will get their income bumped up to $10,000 if they make more than $1,000, as RIM gets in the drinks at the last chance salon. The "10K Developer Commitment" kicks in this autumn, and applies to applications submitted before BlackBerry World which will be early next year. …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ok guys, here's how we do the scam...

    1) Develop some random simple blackberry app

    2) Find a 'rent-a-person' type website and offer to pay 100 people with a BlackBerry $10 each to download your app.

    3) Get RIM's $10000 bonus

    4) Pay your mules and then pocket the $9000

    Who's with me?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ok guys, here's how we do the scam...

      Get a thousand-and-one developers to agree to buy each others one dollar app, no matter how trivial it is. This makes you 9000 dollars from RIM and a 1000 from the other developers, the money you spend on buying their apps. Net profit 9000 dollar.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ok guys, here's how we do the scam...

      One problem - the app has to make $1,000 dollars, so you'll have to pay your 100 mules more than $10 otherwise they won't make any money once they've bought the app. And your app will either have to cost $10 or you need more mules.

    3. Andrew 6

      Re: Ok guys, here's how we do the scam...

      The version I sent to a colleague is slightly more encompassing of the rules and easier to get people to do it as they make a couple of dollars too

      Process:

      Make crap app

      Sell at $10.01 + tax

      Pay 100 people $15 to buy it

      Profit

      Projected costs :

      Dev time (couple of hours of my own time)

      +

      $1500 ~= £950

      Projected Revenue

      $10000 ~= £6250

      Projected Profit:

      £ 5300

      Essentially betting a grand for a year to receive a 5K profit

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ok guys, here's how we do the scam...

      Now if you throw in a new car, say an Aston Martin we can talk business, otherwise I will continue with Android and OSi where I can make a little money.

    5. John Tserkezis

      Re: Ok guys, here's how we do the scam...

      > 1) Develop some random simple blackberry app

      How about a farting app? Seemed to be popular with the iOS crowd.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I smell desperation

    ....a most unattractive quality.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I smell desperation

      Nature teaches us to attack the weakened gazelle. This particular gazelle seems to want to be eaten though.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: I smell desperation

        The IT equivalent of limping through the lion enclosure covered in barbecue sauce hitting yourself with a meat tenderiser?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I smell desperation

      "I smell desperation

      ....a most unattractive quality."

      .....because developing for iOS isn't?

  3. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Backport

    It's hard to see if they'll allow people to port apps to the BB10 from other platforms, as the Ts&Cs aren't available until "the Fall of 2012" (though Blackberry itself may yet become "the fall of 2012" </lame joke>). So I'd guess this inducement is to bribe the already successful apps from other platforms to bolster their platform, too.

    Though if they only allow one payout per developer, they may find the unintended consequence is that developers port a less popular app, that's easier to rewrite, rather than a top-seller.

  4. Ommerson
    FAIL

    s/sensible/desperate/

    $10k doesn't buy you very much developer time, and getting $1k of sales might be quite difficult as well.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: s/sensible/desperate/

      I dunno, that's about £6k in real money, £300 per day for a decent developer as a contractor is about 20 days.

      The ideal app would be something basic that you would pay a small price for.

  5. Sander van der Wal
    Devil

    Should be plenty of money for a fart app..

    ... at least you know how much how much the development costs should be (for the developers unaware of opportunity costs).

  6. Giles Jones Gold badge

    Wouldn't they be better off not taking a large cut of the app price for a limited time to revitalise the platform? so 10% tops for apps and content. It might at least spark a price war.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    I didn't know they sold beer at hairdressers!

    "RIM gets in the drinks at the last chance salon"

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    fourth ecosystem?

    Surely you aren't including Windows Phone??? BAAAWAAHHHHAAA......

    1. Dave 15

      Re: fourth ecosystem?

      Probably still including Symbian... after all sales of Symbian probably still top those of windows, and overall there are still a hell of a lot of Symbian devices not yet retired (they are after all pretty damned good).

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "as RIM gets in the drinks at the last chance salon"

    Do balding men go to the last chance salon?

    1. Captain DaFt

      "Do balding men go to the last chance salon?"

      Of course! It's their last chance to get a haircut before it all falls out!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Downvotes for jokes now

        What is the world coming to?

      2. Gerhard den Hollander

        as in .. Steve Baldmer ?

        a

  10. mark l 2 Silver badge

    In the UK at the moment i bet Blackberry is currently the 3rd ecosystem. With teenagers its the prefered phone of choice due to unlimited free messaging through BBM.

    1. Gerhard den Hollander

      Not just the UK .. if you look in Europe (and also in Texas) every 4th or 5th phone you see people using is a blackberry. The difference is that those who have a blackberry stay with their current one, and dont feel the need to buy a new one when the next model comes out..

      Mine is a 2 year old running OS6, and I have no urge or craving to get the most recent model with OS7 (in fact if it wasnt for the fact that the old one had a hardware failure and was more expensive to repair then to get a new one, Id still be using that one.

      So BB is popular, but it just isnt driving near the number of new sales that the iPhone and android crowds draw

  11. david 12 Silver badge

    Gossip column

    Gossip columns like this would be actually useful if the author included a few web links. Perhaps a link to the press release, the RIM web site, or a relevant RIM web page

    1. Bill Ray (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Gossip column

      I did. Well... I thought I did, yes... I did.

      The link was in the text, so one would have to read the piece to find it, but here it is naked:

      https://developer.blackberry.com/builtforblackberry/documentation/10kterms.html

      I'm afraid I've no head for gossip, I can never remember who's supposed to have offended whom, but if it's gossip you're after I will try harder in future.

      Bill.

  12. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

    How did they miss the boat?

    Blackberry had all its ducks in the water years before mobile phones took off.

    What went wrong?

    1. James 100

      Re: How did they miss the boat?

      The problem is, ducks are very reluctant to board boats.

      Seriously: they got there first - and never moved with the times. Where's DEC now? From the PDP/11 and Vax, they end up getting eaten by a PC cloner which got eaten by a printer ink vendor. IBM started the whole PC market - and ended up offloading that to a Chinese clone-builder.

      Being first in a market certainly doesn't guarantee success, particularly in tech; I suspect in some cases it might even be better to come in a bit later. RIM and Apple both had a hard time getting carrier buy-in at first; I remember back when the original iPhone was new, I had a hard time getting data support on my Vodafone account at all! ("Data? On a phone? Why'd you want that? How about a nice PCMCIA datacard instead?"). Now they know there's money in it, the carriers are all falling over themselves to push fancy handsets.

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