Does Application Become RIM’s Investment Target in Indonesia?

One of the articles on Bisnis.com (in Indonesian) about RIM investment in Indonesia is caught my interest. We might know the “war” between Indonesian government and RIM becomes like soap opera with long episodes.

Many things keep our attention on it. One of them is the RIM investment. The article on Bisnis.com stated that RIM will propose the investment concept in November. This statement comes from Hatta Rajasa - Coordinating Minister for Economy. The investment (according to Bisnis.com) is about the software, not the hardware, and it might be about the development of research centre and application institute for global market. It will be done with the cooperation with technology institute in Indonesia (Bandung and Bali).

This news reminds me to the Developer Day event and the short meeting with the RIM representation at ITB some time ago. From the interview with media, RIM which is represented by Johan Kremer and Sarim Aziz stated the RIM plan to cooperate with developers and campuses to build ecosystem and application development for RIM devices.

ITB representative also said that the cooperation between RIM and this campus is in the form of extra curriculum program. This cooperation also get participation from other party such as Kompas that hold an event to grab the developer in this campus to develop BlackBerry and PlayBook application based on the content they have.

RIM also stated that they will keep improving the similar event in some campuses and cities in Indonesia. Therefore, it might be possible for them to gather developers from other cities, especially at campuses in Indonesia, not only in Jakarta and Bandung for example.

The approach to campus is interesting, at least if we see the application and ecosystem target of RIM. The “early” development and application building is an important factor to get users, which, according to me, is the weakness of RIM compared to other devices.

BB application developers in Indonesia, for example, is not in small number but they prefer to develop “by request application” and completing the product on the existing platform, instead of focusing on their own product (app) for RIM devices. However, the user market in Indonesia is relative big, may be will stand for 3 or 5 years.

Does application become the focus of RIM investment strategy in Indonesia? It might have been started from the BB DevCon in Bali and Developer Day in Bandung. Moreover, RIM has good relation with some developers in Indonesia. The investment on the application development may be more relevant or more logical if it is compared to other kind of investment. Not only developer, users who consume the content from applications can be the target because of the big adoption of RIM devices in Indonesia.