Neutron :: Bomb

by John Calian |
Topics: Application Stores | Blackberry | RIM

David Meyer (ZDNet) chatted with the Mike Kirkup, RIM's head of developer relations, about the Application Store that Blackberry is going to offer.

On Monday, the firm announced that application developers can now submit applications to RIM.Old Press release here from October.

In response to a question about 'gatekeeping' the submittals, and in comparison to the different ways in which Apple and Google tackle this, said:

...we have the ability today for people to write apps for our platform, and we put no restrictions on when where or how they can distribute those apps — it could be through the BlackBerry site, or something like Handango....What we're trying to do is build up a catalogue of apps that are easy for customers to find and use. If somebody builds a better calendar app than the one that's natively on the device, we don't have a problem with that, and they are welcome to sell it through existing channels. However, we want to make sure no-one is violating any agreements, and their applications don't use excessive network bandwidth or lewd content...

Full article here from ZDNet

I think the part about how RIM wont stop application developers from duplicating their native apps is very interesting, as Apple is very controlling in terms of letting others build apps that compete with theirs.

Good stuff here, and I am also really excited about what Palm is going to be doing.