T

he fanfare around Angry Birds, Instagram and WhatsApp have not gone unnoticed by device manufacturers, who now consider a well-stocked application environment essential in generating sales and the functioning of devices.

As a result, device manufacturers who run their own platforms, such as RIM and Nokia, are striving to engage more developers to create powerful applications, or apps, for the platforms as devices increasingly become app-centric.

In a telling move, Research In Motion (RIM) chose to unveil their BlackBerry 10 platform to developers first by holding the BlackBerry 10 Jam world tour, which stopped in Jakarta last month.

During the conference, RIM shared how-to tips on building apps for the latest platform, though launch delays have eroded trust in the company amid languishing stock prices.

RIM’s aim was singular — get as many developers as possible to create apps for BlackBerry 10, so that the platform would have a wealth of available apps during its launch, set for the first quarter of 2013.

“For RIM, the developer ecosystem is key,” said Sarim Aziz, RIM’s head of developer relations for the Asia-Pacific region. “So we are giving developers a head start before we launch the product.”

Besides RIM, Nokia is heavily involved with local app developers as well.

Martin Chirottarab, Nokia Indonesia country manager, said that Nokia regarded developers as a key part of the device ecosystem, which also consisted of operators and content providers.

To maintain strong ties with the roughly 12,000 local developers creating for Nokia, the company organizes monthly events, such as hackathons, or meet-ups where developers trade knowledge.

Besides covering development costs, Nokia also gives developers tools, training and books to learn how to code.

Local apps, Chirottarab said, would appeal to customers and help the company differentiate.

Android is an open-source platform, allowing developers to download the necessary software easily from the Internet. The platform is also gaining traction in Indonesia as more feature phone and smartphone users, traditionally leaning toward Nokia and BlackBerry devices, respectively, switch to Android-based ones.

A study by the International Data Corporation (IDC) predicted that approximately 13 million of the roughly 33 million smartphones shipped to Indonesia in 2016 would be running on Android operating systems.

Chirottarab said Nokia channels all revenues from app sales to those in the ecosystem, including developers and operators, since “Nokia’s business model is to make money from selling phones, not apps”.

Hasting Singh, the vice president of RIM for Southeast Asia, said that RIM also facilitated developers in making money from the sales of apps and in-app advertisements.

RIM gives 70 to 80 percent of revenues from the sale of an application to the developer, in addition to offering advertising schemes within the app.

“The key concept is we want to be a platform that developers find easy to work with,” he said, adding that RIM has 3 billion apps in their app store, with 2.5 billion downloads per day.

Mobile operators are keen on developers too.

PT Telkomsel spokesman Ricardo Indra said that his company had adopted the concept of DNA — data, network and application — to guide business growth.

He said the network infrastructures that operators ran would only bring value when data coursed through them. Applications, such as WhatsApp, were the source of this data traffic.

“And this is where the developers fit in,” he said, adding that applications, such as WhatsApp, have become a market trend.