>Personally, I don't care about an ecosystem because I don't use third party apps at all. Then you are a feature phone customer, not a smartphone customer, for

>Personally, I don't care about an ecosystem because I don't use third party apps at all. Then you are a feature phone customer, not a smartphone customer, for the most part. Nothing wrong with that at all, but if they want to survive, they need to meet the full expectations of smartphone customers that want to utilize their devices to the hilt. As far as paying for the top 50 apps...it isn't feasible. The top 50 apps include many apps that are actually platforms in and of themselves. Coding for an entirely new OS induces obscene costs up front, and for ongoing support, and in order to justify those, there needs to be a substantial customer base, -not a hope for one and a substitute of cash in its place. RIM doesn't have enough money to bribe devs into bad business decisions on that scale. Unfortunately for RIM, apps are made by developers not on their payroll, and developers are independent business with bills to pay. They aren't going to waste their precious resources like money, time, infrastructure, marketing, and opportunity cost to build for an OS that has no customers at the moment. Classic chicken and egg scenario, and yes, a perfect OS on perfect hardware in no way implies a solid position from which to regain a decent stable market anymore. The market has matured.