The Carriers Are In Charge
First Published June 12, 2008
Your job as a BlackBerry software developer will be much simpler if you realize who RIM's customers really are. Let me give you a hint: it isn't you. Nor is it Joe Schmoe, average BlackBerry user. RIM's customers are the wireless carriers. (That's what we call them here in North America. Network operators in the rest of the world.) The end consumers (you and me) are actually the carriers' customers. As a developer, your needs and priorities are second to the needs and priorities of the carriers. For example, did you know that the BlackBerry had a full IP stack available for a long time but the carriers didn't want it exposed? And that even now some carriers still don't support BIS, which leaves application developers for unpaired devices (not tied to a BES) without any dependable network connectivity on those carriers? Now, you could argue that software developers are very important to the future success of the BlackBerry ecosystem. And you'd have a point: companies are looking for good ROI from the expensive wireless devices they buy and the ability to run all kinds of useful applications on a single device is very appealing. But let's face it, email is still the primary BlackBerry application and probably always will be. It's what the device is known for. It's how RIM's built its business. The carriers, of course, want people to use their devices more, but in ways that make them money. If you've got a standalone app that barely uses the network, they're not that interested. Maybe things will change in the future. But for now, the carriers are still in charge. |
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