RIM had showed off their new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in great style at a recent developer event. All for a good reason too. The company is looking to expand their already impressive developer database. RIM at present has a 300,000-strong army of devs. By adding the BlackBerry Tablet OS, the giant would have the advantage of being associated with the kingpins in the field.
Will dual OS’ help or harm RIM?
Some of you would have wondered how a dual OS system would work out well for RIM. This could confuse devs about deciding which OS to write apps for. But the move seems sensible after all, because it is attracting more developer attention than ever before.
RIM has not said anything officially yet, but all future BlackBerry devices might well hinge on the Tablet OS. The Tablet OS, which works via a virtual Java machine, would eventually help Java devs who write apps for BlackBerry, to create them for PlayBook too.
The Tablet OS will lets devs work through BlackBerry’s new platform, WebWorks , so they can continue to program with standard web languages like CSS, HTML5 and JavaScript.
The Tablet OS supports Adobe Flash and AIR apps too. So RIM is trying to reach about 3 million Flash developers – the results would be stunning if it actually worked. This also means that the existing Adobe apps would also be available on PlayBook in the near future and the company would require the least bit of porting to achieve the same.
Tablet OS will give devs a new SDK
Very soon, the Tablet OS will also provide devs with an exclusive SDK. This may only attract C developers, though. All this is thanks to the QNX-based OS, which permits seamless integration between diverse environments. This automatically implies that Tablet OS could combine with other languages in the future, as also support Android apps and the like. Of course, this may or may not actually happen, but it gives RIM a wide range of options to choose from.
Right now, the system is both flexible and stable. Most processes are protected from each other, and so, one does not interfere with the other and the working of the OS in general. The BlackBerry App World only contains some 10,000 apps. Now developers are given the power to write many more apps for it.
Will RIM succeed in their mission?
While RIM is doing all this with the intention of building a solid dev structure, it still remains to be seen if it really works in the company’s favor. Many of you may recall that Palm’s webOS , which had offered developers the same kind of opportunity, failed to kick up a storm in the dev market.
There is one more thing to consider here. By the time the PlayBook enters the market, the iPad and several other Android tablets would offer still competition too. Well, only time will show us how successful RIM will be in their current venture.
