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Content Tagged blackberry
The iFund Has Competition: $150 Million Blackberry Fund To Be Announced Soon
The platform wars are going mobile. Whether it’s the iPhone, Blackberry, Android or Windows Mobile, the mobile platform that will win in the end will be the one with the best and broadest collection of applications. To give developers a little extra financial motivation, funds are being set up to invest in them. Google announced a $10 million Android challenge back in November, and Kleiner Perkins announced its $100 million iFund for iPhone-only startups in March. Now, it looks like Research in Motion is about to announce its own $150 million Blackberry Partners Fund (site not up yet) to spur applications and services for its mobile device.
At least, that is what VentureBeat reports in an item that appeared in its feed, but has since been pulled from the site (see headline here. Update: the first link above is now live). According to that post (excerpt):
Research In Motion, the RBC and Thomson Reuters have invested in an $150 million venture investment fund, called the BlackBerry Partners Fund, to support developers of applications running primarily on the Blackberry.
The announcement will be made in Orlando at a convention on Monday.
The venture firm backing the fund is Canada’s JLA Ventures, a Montreal and Toronto firm active in mobile. That firm will co-manage the investing process, together with the investment group of Canada’s largest bank, RBC Venture Partners. RIM, RBC and Thomson are anchor investors in the fund. Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO, Research In Motion, is on the advisory board of JLA Ventures.
The fund will focus on Blackberry apps, but will also be free to to invest in startups that develop for other mobile platforms as well. That’s smart because no startup should restrict itself to just one device.
But doesn’t it seem like everyone thinks they need to dangle money in front of startups to attract them to their platform these days? (See also the fbFund for Facebook startups and and the MySpace incubator spinoff Slingshot Labs). What ever happened to simply building the best damn platform in the world and letting the app developers come to you because that’s where all the users are?
Update 2: VentureBeat also has a Q&A with one of teh venture partners here.
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On Sale: The iPhone (well, in Europe, at least)
Well the iPhone may be hard to come by in the U.S. these days, but they’re practically giving them away overseas. As Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster notes today, two more mobile phone retailers — Britain’s 02 and Carphone Warehouse — have cut the price of the 8 GB iPhone by 37 percent. This follows another, even more drastic price reduction earlier this month, of 75 percent, by T-Mobile in Germany.
Munster thinks the cuts indicate that the demand for iPhones in Europe is light. However, he also believes iPhone carriers are clearing the way for the new 3G model, expected to be launched in June.
Meanwhile, RIM’s BlackBerry keeps adding addicts overseas: Roughly 33 percent of its subscriber base is now outside of North America, according to Scotia Capital’s Gus Papageorgiou — with most of it in Europe.
What Makes a Good Mobile Application Great
What separates the good from the bad in the mobile web space? More importantly, what makes a good mobile application truly great? There are lots of examples out there, but what can mobile developers learn from them? Here are some common sense guidelines:
Mimic the desktop UI
Each web site or web application that we use in this Web 2.0 world has a feel that we’re used to; the mobile version of web sites should merely be an extension of that experience. Web developers should use the same fonts, color schemes and buttons wherever possible to make us feel at home. For an example, check out Mobile Facebook (here on the left), which uses the same blue hues and fonts as the Facebook I use everyday in Firefox. Facebook has also made it easy to click on a friend’s name and pull up their profile page with a mini-feed, contact information, and other Facebook features we know and love.
Good examples: Mobile Flickr, Mobile Google Reader and Pownce Mobile.
Strip it, strip it real good
A great mobile web site is a stripped-down, more functional version of its original incarnation, and simplicity is king — all unnecessary graphics should be be excluded. In terms of screen flow, content should be presented first, with navigation placed at the bottom of each page. Having to scroll past navigation to get to the real meat of a web page is the bane of any mobile user’s existence.
Good examples: Mobile Twitter, Google and Mobile Wunderground.
It’s the hardware, stupid
Smart mobile application developers utilize the hardware to its full extent. One example is the Nokia platform, which is known for being completely transparent and vulnerable to developers and has subsequently yielded some great applications.
Good examples: JoikuSpot will use the built-in Wi-Fi to turn your WAP cell phone into a wireless access point; ShoZu will use the N95’s GPS to automatically geo-tag photos and upload them to Flickr; Nokia Sports Tracker will use the GPS module to give you a map and stats about your workouts.
Know thy platform
Mobile web applications should be written natively for each device. Java applications, including GMail for mobile and others, are quirky and routinely lock up, requiring the user to either exit or restart. Having to write apps for multiple platforms may be tedious, but will result in happy users.
Google was able to take Google Maps to an entirely new level of usability by adding “My Location,” which uses cell-phone towers to give an approximate location and has been called a “poor man’s GPS.” It’s only accurate to around 1,000 meters, but saves keystrokes when trying to find a local pizza place.
Unfortunately with most mobile platforms, especially here in the U.S., hardware is limited by cell-phone service providers that subsidize handsets. But Google’s Android and the Open Handset Alliance will help put in motion a new era of “openness,” and consumers will be the direct benefactors.
And of course, Apple’s SDK is coming out soon, which will undoubtedly spawn numerous touch-based applications.
My prediction: The iPhone will be the most hotly contested mobile application platform and the App Store will be full of highly functional and downright fun applications to add to your precious iPhone.
Oh No….Blackberry Ban In India?
Put this in the dumb-things-dumb-government-officials-do category! Apparently India’s Department of Telecommunications has rejected Tata Teleservices’ application to offer RIM’s BlackBerry on their network. DoT’s dumb excuse: “BlackBerry service does not allow for ‘lawful interception’ mandated for all Value Added Services (VAS).” In other words, they are bringing up the national security bogeyman! Current BlackBerry service providers have been contacted by DoT as well. The question is, what will DoT do with overseas visitors who show up with their BlackBerrys?
