BlackBerry's BBM app will soon be available for the Apple iPhone and iPad as well as Android devices. Thorsten Heins, chief executive officer of BlackBerry, announced the move during the BlackBerry Live event held in Orlando last Tuesday.
The BBM will be free to download and will initially be rolled out for iOS 6 and Android Ice Cream Sandwich devices this summer if approved by Apple and Google, respectively. This will enable active users of BBM, currently pegged at 60 million per month, to reach out to family, friends and colleagues who are not BlackBerry users. Around 51 million of these users utilize the messaging service for 90 minutes each day on average. On a daily basis, BBM users exchange around 10 billion messages.
The multi-platform BBM will enjoy features such as BlackBerry Groups, voice note sharing, multi-person chats, and immediacy of BBM chats.
"For BlackBerry, messaging and collaboration are inseparable from the mobile experience, and the time is definitely right for BBM to become a multi-platform mobile service. BBM has always been one of the most engaging services for BlackBerry customers, enabling them to easily connect while maintaining a valued level of personal privacy. We're excited to offer iOS and Android users the possibility to join the BBM community," Andrew Bocking, vice president for software product management and ecosystem of BlackBerry, explained through a press release.
BBM was once considered the top choice for mobile messaging system but since it can only be used by BlackBerry users, its popularity dwindled. The company needed to look for a way to make the most of its software expertise to generate some revenue.
The availability of BBM to other platform users will set it up on a collision course with other messaging apps such as Viber, WeChat and WhatsApp. On the iOS platform, Apple has its own Messages app, which does not allow cross-platform messaging. WhatsApp has around 200 million users while WeChat claims to have 190 million active users. The Messages has more than 140 million users. The numbers clearly show that BlackBerry is not the big dog in the mobile messaging scene but the BBM for iOS and Android will be a big step forward for the company.
The possibility of a cross-platform BBM actually made some buzz back in 2009 and 2010 but the rumors just remained as rumors and BlackBerry was not able to capitalize and disrupt the mobile messaging scene.
