If Mr. Saunders ever wants to change career paths, public speaking should be a consideration - the man has charisma. What started with a “We’re worth the wait” rock ballad music video, laced with sharp points on why BlackBerry is the way to go over the “other” OS’s, continued straight into a lively keynote whose sole focus was on the strengths of the forthcoming OS and of course, how well BlackBerry World (and the Apps) are actually doing.

As you can see above, the proof is in the numbers - 74k + apps were submitted last year into the BlackBerry App World.

Alec (and RIM) have also made a very strong commitment to the previously disgruntled app development community, having made a $10,000 promise:

Should a company submit a “Quality” app, that has its own marketing push NOT make at least $10,000 in sales via App World, RIM will reimburse the maker of the app for the aforementioned app. RIM is so serious about this promotion that they have allotted $100,000 towards this initiative, just to kick-start it.

From what I have seen so far, I am impressed with the direction RIM is taking with this. More shots if you keep reading.