What Happened To The BlackBerry Developer Fund?
Back during WES time we heard about the BlackBerry Partners Fund. Essentially RIM, RBC, & Thomson Reuters promised to inject $150 million dollars of venture capital into mobile application & service development. When it was announced I was really excited about what this would mean for the BlackBerry developer community. I thought it would really boost it like the Apple iPhone and Google Android developers’ fund.
Sadly, it has been two months and the www.blackberrypartnersfund.com looks exactly the same as it did during WES. Doesn’t it look pretty? They have given simplicity a whole new meaning. I guess all $150 million of the venture fund went to creating their 1 page website and 1 email address…
Where is:
“The BlackBerry Partners Fund will be a catalyst for the development of next generation mobile applications and services,”
That Kevin Talbot of RBS promised in the press release?
Hopefully I am wrong but it is statements like the one below by David that found in the comments on the BlackBerry Developers Conference that has me worried:
… they continue to miss the crucial importance of a happy and thriving developer community. I am a seasoned developer who recently started tinkering with writing a simple application for the BlackBerry platform. So far, it has been a very frustrating experience to say the least. The crappy framework and lack of support resources have been my biggest complaints. Unless they do something soon to improve the developer experience on all fronts, they will most surely shoot themselves in the foot by losing their developers to much better platforms with far better support (ie. Android, Windows Mobile, and iPhone).
Add that to the fact that one of the most outspoken BlackBerry developers, Neil of BBSmart, has thrown in the towel on his blog www.devberry.com out of sheer frustration with RIM.
RIM, please get with the program!
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July 10th, 2008 08:26
What happened? FAR greener pastures elsewhere (aka iTunes distribution) and a “too little too late” approach by RIM. Oh, and throw in a few shares of potential developers seeing that RIM bows to the carrier master, not the customer master.
July 10th, 2008 09:04
Maybe RIM will have some “good news” stories relative to BBDF at the BB Developer Conference in October???
http://www.blackberrydeveloperconference.com/
July 10th, 2008 09:22
Yeah you would think that they would at least update that website. I just think it is sad that RIM lets such promising ideas just die. Hopefully we will hear about it at the developer conference but I am not holding my breath…
Is anybody even going to the developer conference?
July 10th, 2008 09:42
Going? Hmm…it’s ONLY $799 to register, IF you register before August 31, after which it costs $999 (or $1099 on site)! Plus travel, meals, hotel, etc…
I guess if one person signed up and then registered a companion at $199 each it wouldn’t be TOO awful sharing the total cost, but that’d still be $500 each for you and you best berry buddy to get in…
Pass….
July 10th, 2008 12:38
Yeah I wonder how many people registered already…
July 14th, 2008 12:33
Hi.
Rick Segal here. I’m one of the partners on he fund. We are currently alive, well, and have a number of companies currently working with to provide funding. We have a crappy web site which is being worked on (low priority) but anybody who needs to can contact me or the fund if they have a company that they would like us to review for potential funding.
July 22nd, 2008 08:31
[...] this month I asked what happened to the 150 million dollar BlackBerry Partners Fund. Rick Segal of JLA Ventures responded letting me know that the fund is live and kicking. They are [...]
August 7th, 2008 14:18
Registration for the BBDC is now open.