In a move that BlackBerry hopes will cast a tall shadow on iMessage and Google Talk, their BlackBerry Messenger is soon to be available on iOS and Android.
For a long time, the one big thing that kept users tied to the BlackBerry platform was its messaging platform. Across an entire company, or teams for a specific project, BBM is a fantastic product. It was such a big deal that Apple and Google both added features to products like iMessage and G+ Messenger specifically to compete with this service. While there may be alternatives to BBM, many feel that there’s no true alternative. To keep people focused on the BBM service, today at BlackBerry Live it was announced that iOS and Android users would soon be able to use the service.
All versions of iOS, and any Android phone or tablet running Android 4.0 or higher will have access to the BBM platform. Thorsten Heins spoke briefly about the planned rollout of the software, making it clear that while the best BBM experience would be on a BlackBerry, the team would continue to release features to the other platforms and make them a powerful part of the BBM ecosystem. This initial rollout doesn’t include things like BBM video, but instead focuses on group chat and the recently announced Channels feature. Channels will allow BBM users to get together and talk about common topics, which furthers the BlackBerry goal of making their products more mainstream.
Having more users on BlackBerry Messenger, especially for free, places a heavy weight on the company. If the service doesn’t work as well on iOS or Android as it does on BlackBerry, there won’t be a reason to use the service. On the other hand, if it works just as well on Android and iPhone, there’s less reason to stick with BlackBerry. The rollout and future feature released will be a big deal for the company that has relied on BBM as a selling point for so long.
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