BlackBerry CEO, Thorsten Heins has predicted that the company would have 100,000 native apps available for its Z10 smartphone before it launches in the US later this week.
In an interview with the
Australian Financial Review, Heins said that it was in talks with developers of big name apps such as photo sharing service Instagram and video on demand provider Netflix for developing apps for BlackBerry 10.
"We are working constantly on getting these important apps on board," he told the newspaper.
"I think we are seeing the dynamic changing over time as they want to watch and see how BlackBerry 10 is making it in the market.
"They want ROI (return on investment) on their development dollars as well. I think this is a very respectful way of looking at your business, and it is our job to convince them that BB10 is a successful platform," said Heins on getting major developers on its new OS platform.
Heins also talked about the company's stand on introducing a new tablet. He said that the business case for re-entering the tablets market was not compelling at least in the near term.
He also admitted that with the PlayBook, which did not turn out to be a success, the company took the plunge a little too early as it was excited to show off its new operating system and majorly missed out on the app ecosystem.
"I wouldn't want to do it the same way again, if I do something around tablets, I want it to be really substantial and meaningful, and quite frankly it would need to be profitable as well," he told the publication.
"I think the profit pool is very very thin. Kudos to Apple, I think they really managed to own that space, so it doesn't make sense for me to just take this head on. I need to figure out, for my enterprise customers, for my consumers, for my BB10 audience, what can I do that provides them a mobile computing experience in the form factor of a tablet, which goes beyond just the puristic tablet experience," said Heins on the business case for tablets.