BBM multiplatform soon

The famous instant messaging application should be available soon on iOS and Android.

On the occasion of the BlackBerry World conference being held in Orlando, Thorsten Heins, CEO of the Canadian company, announced that the BBM instant messaging application is given to competitors and usable operating systems on a iPhone or Android smartphone. It will be free.

The reactions were quick. If users seem happy because BBM is actually one of the best instant messaging systems, analysts and investors are measured because they believe that opening the BlackBerry is losing one of its main characteristics. "It's quite a challenge," said Steven Li, an analyst at Toronto quoted by Bloomberg. "Although this increases the scope of the service, which currently has 60 million users, it is not clear how BlackBerry will make money with this." So the stock fell 4% on the exchange in the day yesterday.

 The BBM app will be available as a text application in the coming months (during the summer) before the subsequent addition of a voice control. It will be possible to converse via BBM between different platforms: BlackBerry, and Android to iOS and vice versa. The available functions are follows: multi-person conversations, share voice notes, groups. The figures around BBM are 60 million active monthly users. 51 million use the application every day for 1 hour and a half. 10 billion messages are exchanged daily or 2 times more than any other instant messaging application on mobile. Nearly half of the messages are read within 20 seconds of receipt.