BBM For All Phones!

BBM For All Phones!

It is official!
Yes! You heard it. BlackBerry Messenger is no longer going to be for BlackBerry phones alone. Research In Motion (RIM) CEO Thorsten Heins revealed this in the recent annual BlackBerry conference along with their new budget smart phone the BB-Q5. 

BlackBerry Messenger has been exclusive to BB users hitherto.  It will now be available on rival smartphones. 
"It's time to bring BBM to a greater audience".
"We are excited to offer iOS and Android users the possibility to join the BBM community".
Those are the words of Thorsten Heins, giving the hint that BBM will be in both the Google Play and Apple App store. Unfortunately, Nothing was mention about the Windows Mobile OS or Nokia Phones. 

At it's roll out, BBM will be offering texts, photo messages, voice messages and group sharing on the Android and iOS devices. Other features such as screen sharing, voice and video calls will be offered later in the year. 

A lot  has been said on how this will impact the sales of BlackBerry devices. But the CEO had this to say: "It is a statement of confidence. The BalckBerry 10 Platform is so strong and the response has been so good that we are confident the time is right for BlackBerry Messenger to become an independent multiplatform messaging solution". 

Interestingly, IPhone users will need at least an iOS6 to run the app while Android Phones will need at least Ice Scream Sandwich 4.0. BlackBerry share of the mobile market has dropped considerably over the last one year. Rival messaging apps such as Whatsapp, Viber and Skype will have to restrategize to take on the BBM solution. There are already over 60 million BBM users worldwide. 

So, is BBM really going to be a cross platform app for all phones? No! Just Android and iOS for now. 




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