So they're getting 0 in revenue and getting bad press about the potential 200$ price point that they set themselves. Seems like pretty bad marketing, unless they're trying to avoid the trap of not being able to raise the price later because of a built expectation of free.
The bad press is just some people going into hysterics at some scenario that might possibly happen at some distant point in the future.
Which is refreshing in a way, because usually when people are being that hysterical and illogical it is over Apple. Nice to see some other company getting that treatment for a change.
"Is this actually a meaningful revenue source?"
Obviously not. 0 x N = 0 after all. They will however try to make it up in volume (normally a bad joke, but in this case it makes sense). They are massively behind Google's and "the company which must not be named"'s app stores... how then will they come to market with a credible number of apps?
I think the switch to Flash is by RIM a vote of no confidence in their current developers, and I think they were hoping that a big bunch of Flash developers would jump on the band wagon. It might work, who knows. Flash developers have basically no other ways of monetising their work (other than page views of course) so it might seem like a good deal to them. RIM might have looked at their piddly number of apps available for sale for the blackberry and decided that their Java developers just weren't up to snuff.
Of course there are or were systematic issues with app world (basically not available for a very long time outside of the US, the carrier will often not install the app world app, or will delete it before selling the blackberries to the customers, even if you know of its existence it is hard to find etc.)
Also, if the Java developers suck so much, why has Google's app store got so many apps?
Is this actually a meaningful revenue source?