BBERRYNEWS

Today, RIM sent out a notice to all App World vendors that they are taking an additional 10% revenue cut from developers, in order to fund “support the expansion into new markets and to allow for additional billing models.” Previously, RIM allowed developers to keep 80% of the revenue they earned, and this has just been changed to 70%.

This has given developers yet another reason not to make great applications for BlackBerry. Currently, Apple allow the developer to take a 70% cut of the revenue, but they offer a convenient way for consumers to purchase apps, and their store is embedded on every single iPhone sold. While RIM said they’ll be implementing credit card billing, this only brings them a little closer to the portal that Apple provide, and therefore they should offer the developer a higher cut to account for their lack of distribution.

For a platform that is in desperate need of more developers, this was a very silly move on RIM’s part. Click through after the jump where we have a copy of the letter sent to developers.

Attention BlackBerry App World Vendors

We hope you are enjoying the new BlackBerry App World Vendor Portal 2.0, which adds a variety of new features and capabilities to make it easier for you to distribute your applications on BlackBerry smartphones!
 
We are now taking the first step to introduce credit card and carrier billing support for BlackBerry App World, as announced at the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Conference.  These new billing models will open up additional opportunities for you to sell your applications in new markets. 
 
In part to support the addition of these new billing models, if you are distributing paid applications, there are changes to your agreement with Digital River.  This email is provided as notice to you, by RIM on behalf of Digital River, of changes to your Digital River Vendor Agreement.  You will find both black-line and clean copies of the amended Digital River Vendor Agreement attached.  
 
In addition, there are also changes to your agreement with RIM.  This email also provides notice to you of changes to your RIM Vendor Agreement.  You will find black-line and clean copies of the amended RIM Vendor Agreement attached.  
 
These new agreements will also be posted in the Vendor Portal shortly.
 
The changes in these agreements include an update to the BlackBerry App World revenue share from 80% to 70%.   This change is being made to support the expansion into new markets and to allow for the additional billing models referenced above. 
 
We are also introducing Bango as the Merchant of Record for carrier billed transactions.  If you are distributing paid applications, you will soon be presented with the Bango Vendor Agreement, for acceptance, when logging into the Vendor Portal.
 
Our goal is to ensure that BlackBerry App World provides developers with unique opportunities to successfully monetize applications created on the BlackBerry application platform.  We hope that you are as excited as we are about these new billing models.

Best regards,
 
BlackBerry App World Management

© Kyle for BlackBerry Cool, 2010