On to the next bit of BBM for Android info that is also starting to float about. BlackBerry Chief Operating Officer, Kristian Tear, spoke with Cnet yesterday and  stated they are in talks “other handset makers” and that there is interest in pre-loading the BBM app to devices. This would likely include Android and Windows manufacturers. I don’t see Apple slapping BBM in the next iOS device, but I could be wrong.
Tear still refrained from commenting on the launch date for the app in the various app stores, but he did chime in letting everyone know that BBM isn’t dead. The messaging service still has an active user base of 61 million customers around the world and 70% of them use it daily.
The release of the BBM app to Android and iOS, whenever that might be, doesn’t seem to be a concern for Tear. In the terms that many people still use BlackBerry devices solely for the BBM services. With the service jumping cross-platform, then users would easily be able to jump to another platform and still have it available.
“We don’t feel like that is a risk,” he said. “Obviously, if we did, we might have acted differently.”
They are banking the app generating more users to the service who will fall in love with it and head over and get a BlackBerry device. Personally, I don’t see that happening in the Android community. Just because iOS has some great app, doesn’t mean we pull the plug and get an iPhone. We impatiently wait for it to come to Android, which it inevitably does.
What are your thoughts? Have you used BBM in the past and don’t think you can live without it on another device? Will having it on Android make you BB users jump to the darkside, or will it be so fantastically amazing that you will pick up a new BlackBerry device. ?
