Arguably the biggest struggle RIM will have when it releases BlackBerry 10 at the end of this month: making sure there are enough apps on the platform.

So in preparation for the operating system's debut on January 30, the company held a Port-A-Thon this past weekend. The 36-hour event let developers port over their existing apps to the BlackBerry 10 platform, and earn cash -– and developer devices -– in the process.

Starting at 12 p.m. ET last Friday, RIM invited developers to a “porting party” to bring their apps to BlackBerry 10 before launch. Experts of the OS were on hand to help with porting questions.

The event actually ran a little long –- 37.5 hours -– but in the end, RIM was able to reach its goal of approving an astounding 15,000 apps over the course of one weekend.

well there you have it.37.5 hours in, we hit 15,000 apps for this portathon.Feel like I've run a marathon.Thanks to all the devs! — Alec Saunders (@asaunders) January 13, 2013

RIM gave developers $100 for each app approved for BlackBerry App World. The first 200 developers to port between five and 10 apps scored a BlackBerry Dev Alpha device, while the first 10 developers to submit more than 10 approved apps received a paid trip to BlackBerry Jam Europe to celebrate the launch of BlackBerry 10.

RIM's latest OS is set to debut on Jan. 30.

[via The Verge]