Many of us would have a fond memory of exchanging our BB Pin with others to chat on BlackBerry Messenger. The instant messaging app was a complete rage and so many people bought a BlackBerry device only because they were totally smitten by the messenger. If you are still a fan of the messenger, you would not be happy to know that BlackBerry Messenger is closing down.
However, all of this doesn’t matter now because the Emtek has announced that the consumer version of its BBM is dying officially next month. For those unaware, Emtek has acquired and has been taking care of BBM since 2016. The company said in a blog post that it will be ending support for the app on May 31.
The reason for closing down the app is that most of the users of the app have left already and the company has not been able to get new users in spite of adding new features like Uber hailing and video calling.
In the blog post, Emtek said, “We are proud of what we have built to date…The technology industry, however, is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on. Though we are sad to say goodbye, the time has come to sunset the BBM consumer service, and for us to move on.”
However, the enterprise version of the app, called BBMe, will continue to work. If you are one among those who don’t want to let go of BBM, you can download the enterprise version of the app from Android or iOS. While it can be downloaded for free, users have to pay a $2.5 subscription fee every six months. But if you have moved on from BlackBerry Messenger already like most other people, you wouldn’t find it useful to pay for a messaging service that mostly has the same features as WhatsApp.
As we mentioned earlier, BlackBerry Messenger used to be a complete rage before WhatsApp came along. When WhatsApp became available on Google Play Store, and people realised that they could have an instant messenger as good as BBM without having to pay for a BlackBerry smartphone, they obviously preferred that option.
Sensing competition, BlackBerry eventually made its messenger available to everyone on Android, but it was too late. WhatsApp already had created its loyalists by then and its user base had swollen tremendously. Some did like BlackBerry Messenger for the privacy that it offered and yes, but it wasn’t enough for BBM to keep its fans loyal for long.
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