Okay, so it’s no WhatsApp or Kik, but BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) is still used quite a bit in a few markets around the world, which makes the news that the company is bringing its messaging app to iOS and Android later this summer at the very least interesting.
CEO Thorstein Heins announced at BlackBerry Live in Orlando, Florida that his company’s plan is to make the messaging platform a much more robust one, taking on oh so many other messaging apps already on the market. Features like group messaging, screen sharing and Channels will also make their way to both iOS and Android in the future.
“It’s time to bring BBM to a greater audience, we are making the BBM platform more powerful than ever. We want to offer this powerful mobile service to everyone,” said Heins.
BlackBerry Messenger has been one of the staples of the BlackBerry OS, which has been dwindling in popularity for years, even with the recent launch of its BB10 OS. It’s possible that this could put a bigger spotlight on the company and its services — and therefore sell more devices — but it’s also possible that this will give users on other platforms one less reason to switch, particularly if they’re on Android. With BBM and the ability to run Android apps without having to sideload them, one has to wonder what would be the point? What do you think?