Posts Tagged ‘blackberry’

ComScore: Android closing in on iPhone

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Leading metrics firm ComScore has recently published it’s MobileLens report, with Google’s Android OS making a strong showing across the board. The report, which covers August – the end of October found that Google, read:Android based devices now account for 23.5 percent of the U.S. smartphone marketshare.

Looking at the numbers in terms of OS, it appears as though RIM’s BlackBerry is still leading the pack, commanding a 35.8 percent marketshare, with Apple and Google now fighting tooth and nail for the number two spot. At the end of October, 2010, Apple held 24.6 percent of the market, while Google, 23.5 percent.

What’s also important to keep in mind with these numbers is, not only are they now 2 months old, but the growth rate. As referenced above, in July Google held a 17 percent marketshare, while 3 months later that share had jumped to 23.5 percent, a 6.5 percent gain. At the same time, Apple had only increased it’s share by 0.8 percent. If this trend remains on track, it’s very likely that Google might already have a lead on Apple at the time of this publication. Also noteworthy; during the same time, RIM’s marketshare dropped a significant 3.5 percent. Doing a bit of cocktail napkin math, it’s entirely possible that Google may now be nipping at the heals of RIM’s once commanding lead.

While this seems happy happy joy joy for Google, it’s not the best news for games and apps developers. A lack of a single, unified hardware specification means that each and every device has it’s own unique set of “can do’s” and “can’t do’s”. Why would this matter? Other than the obvious set of unique challenges various forms of hardware present, according to ComScore, gaming is also becoming increasingly important to smartphone owners. While up only 1.4 percent, 22.3 in July to 23.7 percent in October, gaming on smartphones has overtaken music listening usage, and is closing in on the social networking category, with less than a percentage point between the two.

It’s also important to keep in mind, as pointed out by Kyle Orland of Gamasutra, the ComScore survey did not take into account iPod Touch devices, which, while not mobile phones, will do just about everything else an iPhone will do (and iPad for that matter – although it’s size format does significantly disqualify it from this survey).

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Blackberry joins the In-App Transactions party – new focus on gaming?

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

This week’s Blackberry Developers Conference has seen an unprecedented whirlwind of activity from Research In Motion. In addition to launching 4 new services for hungry developers to dig into, they’ve also upped the bar by launching a new iPad challenging tablet device, with an interesting focus on multimedia and gaming – a sign of things to come from RIM? Let’s look at the details.

Services

  • WebWorks Development Platform. This is most probably the most attractive offering for developers. The new WebWorks dev platform is a tool that will allow developers a quick and relatively pain free entry into the BlackBerry app party. Featuring a highly integrated platform for HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript codes, the offering funnels directly into native BlackBerry OS functions, as well as a neat packaging system the ports them into full fledged BlackBerry apps.
  • BlackBerry Messenger Social Platform. Think of this offering as a natural extension to the WebWorks package. The Messenger Social Platform allows developers to tap into BlackBerry’s system of sending and receiving files, user profiles, messages, and invitations – something that RIM has historically kept all to themselves. If any of these services sound remotely familiar to some other services widely found in mobile devices that focus on social interaction, particularly through gaming…read on.
  • BlackBerry Advertising Service. Now that RIM has opened the doors to developers, it’s time to monetize. First up – the new advertising service. Similar to Google’s AdMob and Apple’s Quattro, the BlackBerry Advertising Service offers two flavors – “simple” and “rich media” ads that will be served up via “only three lines of code.” RIM says revenues will amount to a 60/40 developer/RIM split.
  • BlackBerry Payment Service SDK. This is the one that really got me excited about all the new offerings. The first two are things that BlackBerry should have done 2 years ago. The Advertising service, ok, it might take a while to get up and running, but the new Payment Service, which allows for in-app payments via credit card, PayPal and/or carrier billing could, should, and will be a major boost for RIM. Not only will they be pulling in additional revenues, but by offering this option, the entire BlackBerry range of products just became a whole lot more attractive to an entire pool of talented developers.

Hardware

If you’ve been paying attention to what’s what in Tech today, there’s one major current in play – everyone’s gotta have a tablet. And it’s not that Apple is the only game in town, it’s just that Apple is the game that everyone is talking about – and has.
Not to be cut out of the party, Research In Motion presented their own offering earlier this week with the announcement of the PlayBook. An interesting choice of words for sure, especially coming from a firm that’s spent years and years focusing on big business customers.

playbook

RIM’s PlayBook is operating on the newly dubbed BlackBerry Tablet OS (powered by recently acquired QNX), and offers full OpenGL, POSIX support, and handles HTML5 flawlessly. Note the HTML5 functionality also mentioned above in the WebWorks offering? Ah yes…the image is becoming clearer now…

And now for the Apple killer – the RIM PlayBook will handle Flash content, as well as Adobe AIR apps – both features that are destined to make games developers’ lives a whole lot easier.

Speaking of games developers, the PlayBook features 1080p video, as well as an HDMI output and microUSB jack. For connectivity, RIM’s 7” dual-core 1GHz CPU device sports 802.11a/b/g/n wifi, as well as Bluetooth 2.1. RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis explained during the presentation that the PlayBook is, “an incredible gaming platform for publishers and players.”

Again, the trend o’ the day is for each and every tech manufacturer out there to put out their own version of a tablet computer. Dell’s not happy with one, but rather is bringing “a whole slew” of new devices to market in 3”, 4”, 7”, and 10” flavors. It was only a matter of time until RIM got on board, but what’s interesting to note is that over the course of their history, BlackBerry has never been the default thought when it comes to mobile gaming. Mobile enterprising – sure, but gaming? Not so much. When even the Brooks Brothers suits are coming over to the gaming side of the fence, there’s a clear deletion of the land in the sand happening as we speak.

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Gameloft reports 20 percent increase in sales over the first half of 2009

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Ah yes, what would mid-summer be without a plethora of financial statements and results? Charting the results coming out this week, we’ve got Changyou up, Ubisoft down, and Gameloft up. In Gameloft’s primarily mobile gaming focused world, Q’s 1 and 2 have seen reasonable growth, indicating that they’re clearly delivering what customers want.

Banking approximately €60 million during the first half of 2009, representing a 20 percent growth year-over-year. Side by side, Gameloft’s numbers:

gameloft numbers

With the majority of their focus on building mobile games utilizing Java, Brew, and Symbian technologies, 95 percent of the company’s revenues derive from this sector. The remaining 5 percent come from console games sales. Gameloft also supports titles for WiiWare, DS, Xbox LIVE arcade, iPod/iPhone, and PCs. Gameloft attributes part of it’s success to manufacturers advancements and innovations, specifically Nokia and Samsung. Obviously, when speaking mobile games, one can and must not overlook the 800 pound gorilla in the room that is Apple’s iPhone, which Gameloft points to as a source of it’s success, citing the AppStore as a major source of income. And not to be left out of the party, Gameloft is also seeing significant numbers arising from RIM’s blackberry devices.

Gameloft has a number of partnership agreements with some of the largest names in the business including Viacom, Sony Pictures, ABC,, Ferrari and Ubisoft Entertainment, as well as individual personalities such as Kobe Bryant, Derek Jeter, Reggie Bush, and yes….Chuck Norris. Perhaps Gameloft can leverage some Chuck Norris to help Ubisoft’s faltering numbers?

While Gameloft maintains a network of offices around the world, the largest share of Q 1+2 revenues came from Europe (38 percent). North America continues to be a strong growth market, garnering 33 percent of Gameloft’s first half revenues, and showing a 39 percent increase in activity. The remaining 28 percent of revenues come from areas listed only as “the rest of the world.” Stepping back and looking at the year-over-year picture thus far, Europe again takes the top earning spot with 43 percent, North America showing 30 percent, and “the rest of the world” making up 27 percent of total sales.

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