The platform wars are going mobile. Whether it’s the iPhone, Blackberry, Android or Windows Mobile, the mobile platform that will win in the end will be the one with the best and broadest collection of applications.

I hope that thought – from TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld – proves true.  I think in the mobile space there have tended to be other big factors in determining success and failure for individual devices and even platforms, and many smartphone users have barely scratched the surface when it comes to mobile apps usage. 

Hopefully we’ll see that change as more and more of our computing activities are done on mobile devices, and as more great mobile applications are developed.

Today, Blackberry became the latest mobile platform vendor to throw some *serious* money into the ring to help spark development of apps for the Blackberry (and other) mobile platforms.  Google started this recent trend with their $10 million Android Developers Challenge, then Apple’s iPhone SDK launch event brought news of a $100 million iFund for iPhone platform development ventures – and now RIM and its partners have upped the ante even further, with a $150 million venture capital fund "to invest in mobile applications and services for the BlackBerry(R) platform
and other mobile platforms."

That’s an awful lot of money being thrown out there for enterprising mobile developers.  Anybody else wish they had even an ounce of coding talent right about now? 

Very soon we should start seeing some of the results of all this funding and encouragement to all these mobile platforms.  I feel sure we’ll see some great apps, and hope that some of them will even start winning over some of those mobile users who’ve never gone past phone calls and texting up to now …

Via: Gizmodo

Related posts:

1. Demos of Android, Google Mobile Platform, Are Up
2. RIM Introduces the BlackBerry Mobile Voice System and Visual Studio Tools
3. BlackBerry Outage Rebates and a Windows Mobile Blackberry
4. RIM Opens New BlackBerry API’s to Support Growth in Mobile Applications
5. Gphone is Android, And It’s Not a Phone, It’s a Mobile Platform