IntenseDebate - Alec Saunders

11 years ago @ Alec Saunders - What are friends for? · 0 replies · +5 points

I saw! That's awesome. I just followed through on my commitment to donate another $250. Let's see if we can get to $20,000 by end of tomorrow :)

12 years ago @ Alec Saunders - Next Up - The Internet... · 0 replies · +2 points

If you thought the videos were nerdy before, Dan, wait until we make one about an embedded OS...

14 years ago @ Alec Saunders - Alec is dismantling an... · 0 replies · +1 points

I just cleaned it. Paint seemed to be an iffy prospect.

14 years ago @ Alec Saunders - It’s time to han... · 0 replies · +1 points

Done, and thank you.

14 years ago @ Alec Saunders - It’s time to han... · 1 reply · +2 points

Yanic, in most cases it's just prioritization. I can't speak to specific cases, but I can tell you that there's a huge amount of competition for developer mindshare these days. When I started at RIM 8 months ago, I took the job because I believed in the technology, and I knew that the company needed to find a way to recruit developers. And you know, it's not going to be an overnight thing.

14 years ago @ Alec Saunders - It’s time to han... · 0 replies · +2 points

Most devs tell us they make more money on BlackBerry than on other platforms. Frankly, it's because there's less competition, and more willingness to pay. There have been countless studies to that effect -- Evans Data last fall being one of the more prominent ones, citing 13% of developers earning more than 100K from the store.

I can't speak to YouMail's experience on other platforms. I've been in the platform business, though, since the early 90's -- first at Microsoft, and ultimately here. When the platform has a built in version of what your product provides, you need to absolutely spank the ball out of the park with your product. Think Symantec and Microsoft -- Symantec built a great business out of providing better anti-virus, disk defrag and so on than Microsoft provided. If you're not head and shoulders above the competition, then you've got a very tough selling proposition.

That's not disingenuous, or a smear, that's just fact.

14 years ago @ Alec Saunders - It’s time to han... · 2 replies · +1 points

See you in Orlando for sure.

14 years ago @ Alec Saunders - It’s time to han... · 5 replies · +3 points

Hey Lionel,

Thanks for the critique.

A couple of comments: there are two or three book vendors in AppWorld today, none of whom received seed units. The big issue with the "clutter" caused by these apps is that there is no separate book category in AppWorld. We're going to have to address this.

I'm not sure what you mean by "devaluing our Playbooks with the world's stupidest marketing move". If you're talking about the sideloading issue, I'd refer you to this blog post in which we backed away from the original plan: http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/04/side-loadin.... I'd also note that it was Twitter that helped us to change that plan. I'm a huge believer in being accessible to customers, and social media is the best mechanism.

And yes, I share your frustration on the marquee partners. We've got a huge team of folks who do nothing but work with these partners, but each one of them is a unique deal and they all take time. By way of reference, one very popular title that shipped at Christmas was actually done in August, but the deal terms this vendor required took months to negotiate.

14 years ago @ Alec Saunders - Chatting with @Scoblei... · 0 replies · +1 points

These aren't goals. We're already doing all these things. We're running the events, seeding the devices, the browser is already built, and we've got the repository of ported open source already open... Go visit http://blackberry.github.com to see it all.

14 years ago @ Alec Saunders - Chatting with @Scoblei... · 0 replies · +4 points

Respectfully, I disagree. I had a front seat while we (at Microsoft) during the 90's made PC manufacturers into low value commodity players. That's what Android will do to the smartphone industry. RIM's shareholders deserve better than that.

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