The reports of RIM bleeding developers have been greatly exaggerated

Earlier, Chris wrote about how the Baird Equity Research survey went wrong and now, Alec Saunders, VP Developer Relations, Research In Motion has taken to the BlackBerry Developer Blog to address the report as well. In the very direct post from Alec, he states he was shocked to hear the information in the report because they really don't reflect that of reality. As man who is traveling the world, attending as many BlackBerry events as possible, he should know the real perception of developers. As noted within the post:

In the past year our BlackBerry App World ™ vendor base has grown 157 percent. We have developers submitting amazing apps for BlackBerry® PlayBook™ users. In fact, the BlackBerry PlayBook app catalog has grown by more than 15,000 apps since January 1 of this year. We just announced that more than three billion applications have been downloaded from BlackBerry App World since launch.

But much more importantly, the BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour we are currently hosting in 23 cities across the globe has seen over capacity registration in almost every city, including New York, Santa Clara, Toronto, Jakarta, Singapore, Delhi, and Montreal. We have already spoken to almost 5,000 developers and the feedback has been phenomenal (don’t take my word for it, search Twitter for the hashtag #bb10jam).

I have been receiving a lot of feedback from developers personally and I can tell you that I am hearing again and again that developers are amazed by how easy it is to work with the BlackBerry 10 tools. They appreciate the open nature of our platform, which allows developers to bring their work and their skills and find a toolset that will work for them. The other thing I hear consistently is that RIM simply treats developers better than anyone else in the mobile industry. That is music to my ears!I want to once again thank our developer community. You see what we are doing to increase our support for you. You see what RIM is building with Blackberry 10 and the amazing opportunity to be part of our new platform and you have shared your enthusiasm and excitement with us.

We all know it's Alec's job to defend the BlackBerry platform and its current efforts but on a personal level, I've heard it time and time again as well. Developers are excited for what BlackBerry 10 will potentially bring to the table. In addition to that, most developers will tell you now that RIM now FINALLY, after all these years, gets what developers want and need from them in order to produce the types of apps every smartphone ecosystem needs.

Sure, there is a lot of developers out there who will speak of past issues with RIM development tools but things have changed and they will continue to change as RIM is dedicated to making progress in this area. If for whatever reason you still think otherwise, attend a BlackBerry Jam, attend one of the many hack-a-thons, reach out to the developers that are actively using the tools and creating apps, read the success stories. You'll find the reports of RIM bleeding developers have been greatly exaggerated.

Source: BlackBerry Dev Blog