In one of the more bemusing announcements this year, BlackBerry announced that they would be bringing their proprietary messenger software, BlackBerry Messenger, to Android and iOS. While unusual, it does make perfect sense for BlackBerry to try to create a premium piece of software for its competitor’s phones, it does however face a distinct uphill battle with the instant messaging market burgeoning with options like Snapchat and WhatsApp.
Sunil Lalvani, managing director of BlackBerry India, confirmed at the BlackBerry Q5 launch event in no uncertain terms that BlackBerry Messenger would be releasing in September, coinciding perfectly with BlackBerry’s original promise to deliver the app sometime in summer.
The BlackBerry Messenger has been met with its fair share of naysayers, mostly from the Android and iOS parties, however, I actually think the BlackBerry Messenger may be able to offer services that aren’t very well represented by current apps, in particular social media sharing and sharing through connected apps. If these features are available to the Android version, this could be a key differentiator among messaging apps, especially if the list of supported apps extends beyond simple Google Maps implementations.
Would you be interested in trying BlackBerry Messenger is released in September? Let us know what you think in the comments.
