BlackBerry has managed to stay afloat in the smartphone market for almost a decade now, something many would call a miracle. Despite facing a decline in sales and heated competition, the year 2013 has seen BlackBerry make a comeback (even a halfway decent one if you still don’t think much of the handset maker) and release an all new OS and handset series to go along with it. The reception in places like UK and Middle East has been pretty overwhelming and the company’s stats show that they aren’t in any financial troubles regarding the releases either.
Will BBM Survive on the iPhone?
Their free messaging service, BlackBerry Messenger is still going strong too, with over 60 million users worldwide. Generally users and companies both have liked the idea of a safe, inter-platform messaging service and since BBM spyware is a problem rarely heard of, it has managed to stay relevant. It has faced some competition by iOS though as many companies have started opting for iPhones as workplace phones instead. Perhaps keeping that in mind the folks over at BlackBerry have decided to up their ‘safe’ messaging game.
The latest news hitting the rumor mills regarding Blackberry is BBM’s plunge into the world of iPhone and Android handsets. OF course this is not a bonafide rumor, it does have substance as Andrew Bocking, Executive Vice President at BlackBerry has made it very clear that BBM has become a top priority over at the organization. According to him, ‘messaging and collaboration are inseparable from the mobile experience’ and hence now the time has come for BBM to become a multi-platform service.
Apparently, if all things go smoothly and Apple approves the idea than the service will be available for free download at the App Store. Furthermore, BlackBerry has also said that they will be announcing BBM channels, new platforms within the BBM service that will allow users to connect to various groups such as brands, businesses, celebrities and so on- -which is supposed to be available for Apple and Android by the end of the year. In other words, BBM may become the next happening social network, enough to rival the likes of WhatsApp. But again, this is all in the pipe lines and may not necessarily even happen. The end of summer is the time line that is given for the new cross platform BBM but we will have to see how Apple goes about this.
Challenge for BlackBerry Messenger to survive on iPhone
Asides from speculating whether the BBM service will become available or not, the next question that arises is whether it will be able to make it on iPhone or not. At the end of the day, the iOS platform already boasts hundreds of thousands of apps and competes with BlackBerry as the enterprise phone of choice. Users who wish to chat up their BlackBerry friends could always use other services such as Viber or Skype but now they can also join the BBM community- -something which would immensely benefit BlackBerry. BBM’s chances for survival don’t seem all that realistic when we look at the wide variety of cross platform apps available but at the same time, BBM already has large numbers of users. The tide can shift anyway it seems.