Move over net neutrality, BlackBerry CEO John Chen calls for 'app neutrality'

[Himanshu Arora]

At a time when virtually everyone from the U.S. President to the general public are debating the issue of net neutrality, Canada-based Blackberry's CEO John Chen has come out calling for app neutrality -- making it mandatory for app developers to offer apps on all mobile platforms.

In a letter sent to several members of Congress, Chen said that any net neutrality legislation must address both carrier as well as content/application neutrality.

Explaining his point, he compared the carriers to the railways of the last century, saying that while they build the tracks to carry traffic to all points throughout the country, the railway cars (referring to the applications) traveling on those tracks are controlled not by the carriers but by content and applications providers.

Chen trumpeted the fact that the company has made its BBM service available both on Android and iOS, while pointing that Apple still limits its iMessage service to iPhone users. He also took on Netflix, saying that while the online-video streaming company is strongly advocating for carrier neutrality, it has refused to make its streaming movie service available to BlackBerry users.

This explanation has CEO Chen cherry picking the facts that he considers relevant today, when BlackBerry phones are not being favored by consumers. He claims that the dynamic has created a two-tiered wireless broadband ecosystem that benefits only iPhone and Android users, adding that these are the sort of discriminatory practices that neutrality advocates have criticized at the carrier level. Yet he forgets when BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) was the de facto chat plafform for mobile users in many markets, and the company chose to ignore Windows Mobile, iPhone, and other competing or nascent mobile platforms.

"If we are truly to have an open internet, policymakers should demand openness not just at the traffic/transport layer, but also at the content/applications layer of the ecosystem," Chen said.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/59487-move-over-net-neutrality-blackberry-ceo-john-chen.html

 

[oldikes]

App developers can make apps for whatever systems they want, thanks.

 

[MadnessRed]

Whilst I like the idea, how for do you go? All apps for iOS and Android, +Windows? +Blackberry? +Symbian? +Ubuntu? +FirefoxOS? +Tizen? +Old School Java?

 

[Guest]

It is a valid concern, and would indeed improve the market, but you can't lay the burden of it with the app developers, who are not responsible. If this would become a requirement, the app platforms should provide a single development platform.

 

[TorturedChaos]

Isn't Black Berry's app store one of the smallest in the Smart Phone market? So of course he wants apps to be developed for all platforms.....

 

[Guest]

There are tens of mobile OS platforms and many of them are used by nobody. It is a waste of resource to support all of them. So even if it is mandatory it should apply to platforms with more than 5% or 10% market shares, which Blackberry is not included.

This is a free market. Developer should have the freedom to support and develop their choice of platform/technology and this is how technology world moves forward. It maybe sad for many people that Blackberry is dying or at least becoming irrelevant, but this is the market and technology - if you cannot evolute and attract customers, you cannot survive.

 

[Guest]

I always want a facebook app for DOS!

 

[Capaill]

This would only be viable if the major platform providers provided free virtual development environments so you could test your new app on a variety of platforms and accurately fix any bugs raised by your customers.

But the sheer scale of needing to support different platforms, different hardware and different OS versions means that app neutrality can only succeed if the platform providers do all the hard work and don't charge a cent for it.

So it's not going to happen.

 

[Guest]

What the hell? Your mobile OS has no apps so you want to legally force developers to create them? Talk about lack of perspective. New apps are not going to save your dying business. You had a huge advantage before the iPhone come to market and you did nothing with that advantage. Now you want to twist the objective of Net Neutrality to get more content on on your dying OS? This is pathetically stupid.

 

[stewi0001]

I think it's a terrible argument and basically crying that no one wants to develop apps for Blackberry. Still, it might be a better love story than Twilight.

 

[Guest]

Are you regretting not going to Android ? Are you saying you made a mistake ?

 

[Guest]

Blackberry; Betamax for the 21st Century.

Also; if he wants to make cross-platform mandatory, is he going to be the one paying for all the extra coding?

 

[thorpj]

So basically he wants to force developers to make apps for his phones. Nice.

 

[tonylukac]

Make all devices compatible. Can't afford phones, macs, and monthly bills.

 

[Littleczr]

Make a single language please preferably C/C++. None of this java fecal matter.

 

[Guest]

How about HTML5? You can test it easily across ALL platforms, all screen sizes, all devices, etc.