BlackBerry in Season this Summer as BBM to Hit Android & iOS

One of the biggest things on BlackBerry devices is BlackBerry's chat platform, BBM. This summer, BBM won't be just for BlackBerry devices any more, as the popular chat platform will cross platforms itself and arrive on iOS and Android devices. While this particular move has been said to be in the works for years, its realization is finally at hand.

When the new release arrives, set for this summer, BBM will not only work on BlackBerry devices, as the name suggests, but will also be available for any iOS device sporting iOS 6 and any Android device running Android 4.0, otherwise known as Ice Cream Sandwich (for those preferring the sweet nickname). The audience at the event seemed surprised, despite the fact that the idea of a BBM cross-platform move had been in the works long before today.

BBM is a highly popular platform, boasting around 60 million active monthly users, and that's just on the one platform. With BBM making the jump to iOS and Android devices, that number is likely to increase. Demand for such a platform is quite clear; Apple's version of BBM, iMessage, currently weighs in at over 140 million users. Moreover, iMessage isn't alone in the market, with several other messenger services—Facebook Messenger, GroupMe and MessageMe, among others—also vying for a growing slice of the market. The WhatsApp juggernaut, meanwhile—itself accounting for over 10 billion messages per day—is also running roughshod over the field.

That's going to mean quite a bit of competition for BBM. However, BBM has a few other tricks up its metaphorical sleeve, namely group capabilities, file sharing, and the recently-added BBM Channels service. Thus, BBM may be able to pull a few of those users into its own fold. Yet at the same time, for those users who already have a chat platform, the few bonuses offered by BBM will be something of a tough sell.

BBM may be making its move to other platforms a little too late to have a significant impact. Given that BBM offers its options for free, it's going to have a bit of an edge over some competitors, like WhatsApp, but there are other free services on hand to compete on that front as well.

Indeed, BlackBerry is late to this particular party, and a lot of users' metaphorical dance cards are already quite full. This means that BlackBerry is going to have to make its value proposition very clear in order to get users to bring a service into the fold that already does what one of several other messenger systems already do. That's not to say BlackBerry won't get some takers—those with friends or colleagues who have BlackBerry devices will undoubtedly welcome the capability to chat—but BlackBerry is going to have an uphill battle on its hands.

It's going to be a little bit of a wait before we can see what kind of impact BBM has on the overall market, but that just buys BlackBerry a bit more time to polish up the value proposition and show the foreign user bases just what the BlackBerry difference really means.