RIM Execs See Apps As The Key To BlackBerry’s Future

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RIM Execs See Apps As The Key To BlackBerry’s Future

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RIM’s co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis said that there’s great potential in building and designing applications for the BlackBerry platform. In particular, they are interested in apps that blend data from several sources, such as an advanced calendar that would notify a user of traffic congestion or other problems that would affect their ability to make it to a meeting on time. Ideas like those will be a key driver of growth in BlackBerry sales going forward, Lazaridis and Balsillie told Reuters (NYSE: TRI).

RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) launched its app store in April, but it has yet to gain much traction. In a report released by Millennial Media and Mobclix, RIM was estimated to have 3,100 applications, compared to Apple’s catalog of 115,000 and Google’s stockpile of 13,000. BlackBerry users also downloaded fewer apps. The report found that BlackBerry users download about 300,000 a month vs. Android users, who download 20 million, and iPhone users, who download 100 million.

RIM is working on improving the experience for developers, including the ability to integrate advertising into free apps, and the ability to integrate with carrier billing, rather than relying on PayPal.

While BlackBerry is coming from behind on the application front, it still dominates the smartphone market. BlackBerry represents the second-largest smartphone platform after Nokia (NYSE: NOK) worldwide. In Q3, Gartner said Research In Motion’s share reached 20 percent, a record high. Still, that doesn’t have investors and analysts at ease. Shares of RIM have tumbled almost 30 percent since late September and analysts are downgrading the stock based on concerns that other smartphone-makers like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) will run them over. Balsillie remains confident: “When we went public everyone was saying, ‘Oh my God, you’re going to get crushed by Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) and paging and this emerging Nokia.’ I’m not trying to be dismissive, and I’m not trying to be glib, but this has played before, several times. All that’s different is there’s a couple more zeros on everything.”

By Tricia Duryee