[meatmanek]

An app is stuck in approval purgatory, and a customer service rep rattles off a canned response about why there aren't any IM apps on the Playbook yet.

That's a long way from solid evidence of anti-competitive behavior. These guys have a right to be upset, since it's been two months since they first submitted, but they should remember Hanlon's razor when trying to explain things.

Rather than trying to cover things up, chances are that the customer service rep honestly has no idea about the IM+ app submission. It's probably not his department.

Likewise, rather than RIM deliberately trying to block IM+, the two month delay is probably due to lack of staff, bad prioritization of tasks, or things otherwise falling through the cracks,

[ptbello]

Does it really matter if RIM are deliberately trying to block the app vs. they are experiencing organizational mayhem that results in the app being blocked?

Point is, these guys have invested man months in an app that would add value to the playbook, and all they are getting are dazed canned responses.

In a similar position it seems more than enough to decide to drop RIM development and move on with the other platforms.

[Elepsis]

Yeah, I understand the frustration, but it's pretty clear that this customer service rep has nothing to do with the approval process of apps and is simply reflecting the current state of affairs.

It sounds like that approval process is pretty messed up at the moment, though. Two months without word seems to be slower than Apple at its worst, and the fact that this app's developers even tried to reach out to regular customer support instead of developer relations implies some serious disorganization.

[divtxt]

I'd say it's intentional due to Hanlon's razor in upper management.

Perhaps some logic like this: we can't lose "our" BBM users but blocking IM apps would drive users and developers away. Let's quietly block IM apps at the approval stage!

Also, "anti-competitive" is the wrong description - unless you count killing your own company. :D

[akc]

I can corroborate with the author's story. I'm developing the BB app for a cross-platform group messaging app and I've also hit a wall of silence from RIM. I can confirm that they are deliberately not giving us access to certain parts of RIM's infrastructure that would make things a lot easier for us. Oh well, guess we'll have to engineer our way around those roadblocks and then open source it!

[divtxt]

I'd love to hear your history, reasons and current attitude to developing BB apps.

The stories* tell me that the RIM/BB developer experience is so much worse than iOS and Android that it's not worth bothering with (as developers and hence as a viable platform).

* the big ones: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2263882 ("You Win, RIM!") and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714270 ("Open letter to BlackBerry bosses")

[melvinng]

It's kind of sad if RIM has to depend on BBM as their last resort to keeping a competitive ground.