An Interesting Fact About The “Blackberry Fund”

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Rick talks about the recent announcement of the fund here.  It’s a $150M fund to drive mobile software/technology innovation.

It’s a great idea and I am proud to see it headquartered north of the border.

I had to read Rick’s post twice to notice something -

“we aren't sharing plans or getting sign off from anyone, including RIM, on the investments”

“What Platforms? All of them. No, really, all of them. Does that mean if somebody has an application on another mobile device but it isn't running on a RIM device we would fund them? Assuming it was a good investment, yes. We would expect the RIM devices to be on the roadmap and would certainly fund for that roadmap.”

This is an interesting twist.  Windows Mobile has tremendous momentum in the Canadian marketplace right now.  I believe that for a mobile software vendor thinking of developing a business we have a few benefits to consider:

  • Speed to market:  .NET developers are easy to find and Windows Mobile is straight forward to code for.  Can you say Silverlight Mobile?
  • Carrier support:  just watch the latest Rogers, Telus and Bell ads on TV
  • Strong partner channel support:  we help you make $

So – if you have a business idea in development on Windows Mobile let us know.  If it’s great, we can go from there…