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by rbanffy 5561 days ago
If there is any reason to assume RIM not to be doomed is this. If they manage to leech off a competing ecosystem, they inherit its advantages immediately. Assuming Google won't go Microsoft on them (as in Microsoft sabotaging Digital Research), I see nothing bad coming.

The Android stack, kernel excepted, is Apache-licensed (thanks, davidw). To graft Bionic (or any glibc workalike) on top of QNX should be a walk in the park in comparison to build a full competitive stack.
1 comments
wtracy 5561 days ago
So, they have the cost of integrating their platform with Android, and ... what benefit, exactly, over just using Android?

Obviously, if you can avoid being commoditized by maintaining your own software platform, that's great. I just don't see that RIM is bringing anything to the table with their OS: http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=2263882

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rbanffy 5560 days ago
What benefit would they have with their own, incompatible with anything else, platform?

This way they can build differentiation full Android stack integrators can't. That, of course, if QNX proves a better environment than Linux.

This is, BTW, the same strategy Microsoft adopted eons ago, when the de-facto standard business OS was CP/M. It was very easy to port your programs from CP/M to MS-DOS (thanks, in no small part, to Intel making the 8086 asm-source compatible with the 8085) and that allowed them to have a reasonable software base from the start. Unfortunately, for CP/M, this was a one way road - it was not as easy to port back.

If Rim can manage a superset of Android, they may have a fighting chance to differentiate themselves.

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wtracy 5560 days ago
I fully understand the advantages of having your own platform.

At this point, I'm more concerned about their competency than their strategy.

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rbanffy 5559 days ago
I don't see having an exclusive platform as an advantage right now. If they could pull off iOS API compatibility, that would be brilliant (assuming their patent cross licensing with Apple adequately covered their asses) and could be conceivably be done starting with GNUStep, but Android seems a good second-best option.

OTOH, I believe the Apple app store TOS would prohibit any in-store app to be distributed in any way other than the store, so, there is one interesting contractual risk.

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