Apple pays its developers 70 percent of the proceeds on sales of their apps. Ditto Facebook with credits and Amazon with Kindle sales. In other words, platforms that matter keep 30 percent of the royalties.

Is this fair or not? Who knows? I personally have no problem with that number and I kick Amazon and Apple 30 percent for a number of things for the Kindle version of my last two books. To me, it’s worth it.

There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of buzz about BlackBerry app development these days.

So, what about platforms that don’t matter? RIM certainly comes to mind. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of buzz about BlackBerry app development these days—and I’m putting it mildly.

A Radical Proposal

If I’m RIM CEO Thorsten Heins, I would give developers 120 percent of the action. So, if apps sell for $1.00 each (to keep it simple), I’d pay the developers $1.20 for every app downloaded. While not sustainable in the long term, this might kickstart RIIM’s moribund development efforts and ecosystem.

What other choice does the company have?