I will not be the one that says Apple is dead nor will I be the one that says RIM is alive. However, RIM is life support and just got an injection of good news. Research in Motion’s BlackBerry 10 OS and new phones is going to either end its way of being or bring it back into prominence. Apple has been on top for so long because of it closed ecosystem of applications. Blackberry on the other hand has never really had a big list of compatible applications. Google’s android was dead in the water until it started building a nice arsenal of apps.
Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store have helped them control the mobile market. Amazon’s app store though not big is based on Android thus it has been easy to port the same apps used already on the mobile platform. Frank Boulben, RIM’s chief marketing officer said that there will be more than 70,000 BlackBerry 10 apps when it launches next week.
That may sound like a lot but it’s really not a lot at all. In comparison, Windows Phone Marketplace has about 100,000 apps. Google and Apple’s have more than 700,000 apps in their stores. RIM has a long way to go before it can be called a leader again. However, this is a good start.