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Blackberry has announced that their Blackberry Messenger popularly known as BBM will be launching across multiple platforms like Android and iOS. Now BBM fans using other mobile devices like Android phone and iPhones can now have the BBM feature on their mobile phone, you can now be able to enjoy the awesome BBM services. This is expected to happen this summer.

The BBM app will be made available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store for users of the various mobile platforms to talk with Blackberry users. The BBM app will support all iOS devices running on iOS 6 and higher, as well as Android devices running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and higher. Both apps will of course need to pass Google and Apple’s approval process first.

Blackberry Messenger BBM

In the first version of multi-platform BBM, iOS and Android users are expected to be able to experience the following BBM features:

• The immediacy of BBM chats
• Multi-person chats
• Voice note sharing
• BlackBerry Groups, where BBM users are able to set up groups of up to 30 people and share calendar, photos, files and more.

BBM Voice and Video chatting will not be included in the initial rollout, but will be introduced later through the app updates.

What does this mean for Blackberry?

In truth, most Blackberry phone users today are only using Blackberry because of BBM and when it has been made available on other platforms like Android and iOS, there will definitely be a shift in the number of Blackberry phones purchased but a massive increase in the number of people using their BBM services.

Already Blackberry is claiming to have over 60 million active users of the BBM and they share over 10 billion messages each day, the release of this app to other mobile phone platforms will see that figure triple.

What does this mean for Whatsapp and other alternatives?

Whatsapp became popular as the closest alternative to the BBM as a result of their non-support for other platforms, but when this app will be released for Android and iOS platforms, Whatsapp and other BBM alternatives will be hit a hard blow. I won’t be surprised to either see a healthy competition that will bring about massive changes and awesome innovations or the death of the alternatives.

Are you an enthusiast of the BBM on Android and iOS? What are your expectations? What is your view of this article? Do you think Blackberry is putting themselves at risk by supporting their biggest competitor’s platforms? Or do you think it’s a smart move? Let’s hear from you, use the comment form below to share what you think about this article with me. Remember to subscribe to my RSS feed.