RIM successfully woos app developers

Research In Motion said it saw 15,000 BlackBerry 10 app submissions in less than two days following two “Port-a-Thon” events aimed at enticing developers to build for the upcoming platform. The company offered developers $100 for every approved title ported from Android and BlackBerry OS.

The announcement is the latest in a series of hopeful signs for RIM, which has seen its shares rise steadily for months in advance of the release of BlackBerry 10, which is slated to come to market at the end of the month. The number of BlackBerry 10 apps will be a small fraction of the number of titles available for Android and iOS, as CNET points out, but I don’t think that will be a huge problem out of the gate. The dwindling audience of BlackBerry users largely consists of hardcore business types who are less likely to fire up, say, Fruit Ninja than the typical iPhone or Android owner. And if BlackBerry 10 devices truly start to sell, RIM won’t have to dangle $100 to encourage developers to get on board.