Research in Motion (RIM) has now set its sights on IIT students and is planning to rope them in to develop applications.
With BlackBerry version 10 expected to be launched next year, the phone-maker wants to get many futuristic apps on board. “We initially started off our pilot version with engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu and then set up an innovation centre in Kerala. Now, we plan to tap the IITs across the country – starting from IIT Mumbai and Chennai,” said Annie Matthew, Head of Alliances, Research in Motion India.
Analysts have been talking about RIM’s steady decline in business performance over the last five years. They hope that BB10 will help the company take on competition from Google and other Android operating systems.
Matthew calls the BlackBerry 10 not just another operating system but a ‘future-ready mobile computing system’.
The BlackBerry 10 Jam held by the company in Bangalore and Delhi last month saw about 400 developers gather to create apps for the BB store.
“The BlackBerry store is the second-most profitable application store platform for developers. There are plenty of monetisation opportunities for developers. The apps they create will be available on version 6, 7 as well as on the Playbook,” said Mathew.
There are about 89,000 applications in App World. It has a total developer community of about 36,000 people, out of which 4,000 are Indian developers. BlackBerry versions 6 and 7 will not be able to upgrade to version 10, as the BB10 will work on new hardware.