Until now reserved for BlackBerry, BBM was one of the main strengths of the brand. It allowed to communicate between BlackBerry devices, receive acknowledgments and reading, sharing media files, start discussions or spend several videos As complete as it is, the system has gradually been overtaken by other companies offering the same kind of service as iMessage on iPhone and most importantly, other services compatible with multiple operating systems like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
From the Blackberry conference on Tuesday 15/05/2013 in Orlando
To revive its messaging service, the Canadian company has decided to make BBM available on Android to version 4.0 and higer and iOS to version 6 and higher.
"Different applications should be available this summer on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store We'll begin with messaging and groups, and later we will bring voice, screen sharing and other services" - Thorsten Heins, CEO of BlackBerry
Making the service available to many other platforms might sound like a good idea but it also presents some disadvantages. First, you might agree with me that this move is a bit late, after Whatsapp and Facebook messenger dominated the market and it would be hard for someone to choose the BBM service over any of those mentioned, and secondly, according to a poll on the Blackberry blog :What Do You Do on Your BlackBerry Smartphone? 30% of 8000 voters chose the instant messaging service and 20% went for social networking, and as well know some people buy Blackberry just to profit of it's famous BBM.
So we cannot but wonder: is making the BBM service available on other platforms going to give Blackberry users the push to finally quit using Blackberry devices and switch to Samsung, HTC or Apple?