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Source: giaomeng/Flickr
Services like WhatsApp are rapidly eroding
BlackBerry’s command over the mobile
messaging market.
Collegefeed rolls out career
marketplace nationwide to
help students find jobs
NEXT STORY
Why BlackBerry had no choice but to bring
BBM to Android & iOS
MAY 14, 2013 11:36 AM •
BlackBerry’s decision to bring BBM to Android
and iOS was, in many senses, inevitable.
The world of mobile messaging apps has
changed since BlackBerry introduced BBM in
2006. While the service still has a whole bunch of
users (60 million of them, by BlackBerry’s latest
count), those numbers are small compared to
those of, say, WhatsApp, which claims it has 200
million active users, and China’s WeChat, which
claims 190 million. There’s also Kik, which
recently hit 50 million users.
Those numbers should speak for themselves: The
smartphone world is moving away from BBM.
But don’t tell that to BlackBerry CEO Thorsten
Heins, who’s arguing that the opposite is true.
“Why are we doing this now? It’s a statement of
confidence. The BlackBerry 10 platform is so
strong and support has been so good that the
time is right for BBM to become and
independent messaging solution,” Heins said,
possibly out of sorts with reality.
BlackBerry’s strategy here is clear: Rather than
cede the messaging app world to the likes of
WhatsApp, the company is piggybacking off
the marketshare success of iOS and Android,
which have many more users than BlackBerry
could ever hope to attract with BlackBerry 10
alone.
In fact, BlackBerry’s move isn’t very different
from its decision to allow developers to port
Android apps to its own smartphone platform.
As an underdog, BlackBerry doesn’t have much
to lose from taking these sorts of bold moves —
even if they betray some of company’s current
weaknesses.
Unlike the Android move, however, BlackBerry’s
decision to bring BBM cross-platform comes with
its own set of risks. Despite
BlackBerry’s shrinking smartphone influence,
BBM remains one of the central, most enticing
things about owning a BlackBerry, and it’s
possible that BlackBerry could cannibalize its
BB10 ambitions while trying to increase its BBM
user numbers.
Still, considering how successful BBM has been
over the years, maybe we should give
BlackBerry the benefit of the doubt. This, could
after all, turn out to be one the savviest things
the company ever done: While the initial set of
Android and iOS BBM functionality will be limited
to chat, BlackBerry also plans to adds features
like screen sharing and video chat as time goes
on.
Those are the sort of things that could give
BlackBerry the edge over its newer competitors.
While WhatsApp and company are attracting the
users, it’s BlackBerry that has the experience.
The question is whether experience alone will be
enough.
Bringing BBM is both smart and inevitable – but
it may also be happening a few years too late

am still confused.....