RIM must be very confident that nobody will earn more than $1000 from a BlackBerry app in order to make an offer like this.
Either that or they are just trying to pump up their stock price for the BlackBerry 10 launch so that the executives can dump their stock before the company goes bankrupt.
I think people are misunderstanding what RIM is doing here. To be frank, RIM's promotion of this isn't doing them favours here either.
The $10k revenue guarantee is a hedge. They're betting that if you make an app that satisfies their Built for BlackBerry criteria (see: https://developer.blackberry.com/builtforblackberry/document...), it's good enough to sell 100 copies, and make at least $1k in revenue, then it's good enough to make $10k in revenue.
They're hoping that your app will be so awesome that they won't have to pay you anything. Bear in mind, this guarantee is over a 12-month period, so there's plenty of time to make that $10k on your own. Furthermore, by being Built for BlackBerry, you get special exposure in the App World storefront.
Personally, I think it's a fantastic idea, and I'm definitely going to be submitting an app or two. But I think a lot of people are taking it as "RIM is paying devs $10k to make an app." That simply isn't true. They're making you work for it, and then saying, "If after all of this work, you still don't make $10k, we'll front you the rest."
So the incentive to promote your app past $1,000 in revenue is that if you're putting in this much work, you should really try to maximize your return.
Actually, this sounds like a good idea to me. The BB ecosystem, broadly, has the system architecture to compete with Android and iOS but it lacks the app availability to make it attractive to customers. Apps have a long tail: there are a small number of hits (Angry Birds, say -- or things like the Facebook app) which have the cash available to develop on multiple architecture already. These will get an extra $10k, which they don't care about and which RIM can afford (who wouldn't pay $10k for Angry Birds on their platform?).
Then there are the junk apps that live at the bottom of the list. These come in huge hordes, and are worthless. RIM doesn't want to pay for them and doesn't care about having them. They provide no value to Apple or Google either.
But then there's a comparatively small group of "cool" apps that make everything work. This is the stuff that potential RIM customers notice is "missing". And the authors would love to see an extra $10k in sales, maybe enough to consider a port. And there aren't that many of them -- maybe a few thousand at most. So RIM is betting that if they blow a few million dollars on seeding this market that they'll make that back in extra handset sales in the near term. It might work.
But I don't think they're at risk of losing a ton of money. How many apps actually make that much even on "first tier" platforms?
The "Angry Birds" don't even get an extra 10k - if your app makes more than 10k you don't get the payout. I think this is an easy win for RIM for sure.
Alas, the last time they mentioned this program, you app had to be "Certified" - presumably they verify it's not crap. It now sounds like they've added a second restriction - it not only can't be crap, it also has to sell $1000 worth as well.
It is entirely possible that I don't know what I'm talking about, but I don't understand how this plan could possibly work. If developers thought they could make money writing Blackberry apps, wouldn't they already be writing them? Since I don't think $10,000 can cover the cost of developing a native app, I don't see how RIM's bounty would influence a developer's decision to develop for their platform.
I have no idea how difficult it would be on Blackberry, but I've made > 1k on over a dozen different apps on iOS. That's really not that hard. Of those, only a few have made 10k though.
More revenue? It's not clear how the $10K promise works (the official site[0] doesn't have the T&C populated yet[1]), but there's surely some time within which you must earn between $1k and $10k. After that time, I'd guess that more purchases would still be yours. But it's unclear until the official rules and conditions are posted.
Actually, it looks like RIM is offering to pay the difference between what your app earns and $10,000. So if you earn $4,000, they'd pay you $6,000.
So if your app is not going to go past $10,000, there's literally no incentive to promote it beyond $1,000 (except the enjoyment of knowing so many people are using your app).
It's not clear what the cutoff date is, although presumably it's the Blackberry 10 launch. So to maximize profit, you should promote it enough to earn $1,000 just prior to launch, take your $9,000, then promote it further.
Keep in mind these numbers are over a 12 month period. And according to the fine print, it's a 12 month period of RIM's choosing. If you only sell $1,000 worth over the course of the first 12 months after the launch of BB10, and RIM decides to hold out for another month, and you sell $6,000 worth in month 13, they might just cut you a check for $3,000 or decide to wait another month and see how you do.
IMO, It's not free money though I think it's meant to sound like free money.
Quality matters. You don't qualify if you earn more than 10k. You qualify if you earn more than 1k. Therefore if you earn more than 1k and less than 10k you have created a quality app otherwise your app is junk.
RIM and FAIL are synonyms.
Hire someone for PR please. Your previous commercial dissed your future phones. The ones without keyboards.
Either that or they are just trying to pump up their stock price for the BlackBerry 10 launch so that the executives can dump their stock before the company goes bankrupt.