When It Comes To Wooing iOS Developers - Palm Ain't Better
It seems like offering cold hard cash to push developers to switch over to your platform is slowly becoming a common industry practice. Following this past weekend's story about Microsoft's practices to lure developers into working on their platform, we were forwarded a couple of similar emails, this time from Palm.
In an email forwarded to us by iOS developer TinyHearts (featured below), we learn that HP still has some plans for webOS and is willing to expend the means necessary to give it some apps. On top of a simplified porting procedure, HP has cut all the app's prices by 50% until July 23rd and will pay the difference out of its own pocket. In other words, they'll match your revenue.
Another key element is that HP apparently put together a prize pool of a million dollars in cash and HP products that they'll be giving out to developers.
It's not as blatant as Microsoft's attempts, as this campaign looks like a more general promotional mailing. Yet, these are still sent to iOS developers and I'm sure they're glad to be courted this way.
Here is the full email:
Dear Developer,
This summer is an exciting time for Palm and our developer community! Palm and HP recently announced the completion of the merger between the two companies, ushering in a new era of exciting opportunities for developers. As the largest technology company in the world, HP brings the extensive resources necessary to scale the Palm® webOS™ platform to a new level. Bring C/C++ apps to webOS quickly and easily If you haven’t already joined the webOS developer program, now is the time to act. Using Palm’s PDK toolkit, you can quickly and easily port your existing C/C++ applications and extend your revenue opportunities, plus take advantage of this summer’s programs: • Driving more Revenue From June 18 through July 23rd, Palm is sponsoring a Summer App Discount Program – 50% off of all paid apps in the U.S. while subsidizing the cost of the discount for developers. This means the potential for increased downloads of your apps while you still receive your full revenue share. • No more submission fees We’ve recently eliminated the $50/per app submission fee that was part of our developer program. This means no cost associated with joining the webOS developer program or submitting applications to the Palm App Catalog. • PDK Hot Apps Promotion The Palm PDK Hot Apps Program offers developers $1 million in cash or HP Products for applications developed using the Palm webOS Plug-in Development Kit (PDK), available on our web site at http://developer.palm.com/. If you’re a developer with games programmed in C/C++, our PDK makes it fast and easy to port your apps to webOS, so increase your revenue potential and start competing for your share of $1M. The count begins July 15, 2010 and will last until September 30, 2010. Learn more about PDK Hot Apps at http://developer.palm.com/ and get started soon. This is only the beginning as we increase our efforts to help developers grow distribution and revenue. Ready to learn more? Email us at pdk@palm.com, tell us where you are in your planning and development efforts, and we'll personally guide you through development, submission and marketing opportunities for your webOS applications. We look forward to hearing from you! Best regards, Palm Developer Relations
Your take?