14 DAY TRIAL // There were times when BBM was quite a successful messaging service in the enterprise, and this is what convinced BlackBerry to make it available cross-platform, but it turns out that those days are long gone.
The Canadian phone manufacturer has decided to pull its BBM app from the Windows Phone store, thus focusing instead on its Android and iOS clients.
The company hasn’t offered any official statement on the reasons behind this decision, but it’s being reported that BBM is now listed as incompatible with devices running Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile, and nobody can download it anymore.
Most likely, if BlackBerry indeed retired its Windows Phone app, it’s because nobody was using it, but this isn’t a problem that’s specific to Microsoft’s mobile platform.
The downfall of BBM
BBM was one essential messaging service for enterprises back in the days when BlackBerry wasn’t building Android phones, and it actually offered state-of-the-art stability, security, and video quality. BBM Video has long been one of the most advanced video calling solutions, although not so widely adopted, but BlackBerry’s cross-platform efforts have actually failed to save it from collapsing.
One of the major problems that BBM had on non-BlackBerry devices was that it required BlackBerry accounts (PINs) and friends to be added manually to the contact list in the typical Yahoo Messenger-like way that’s no longer being used today.
In the meantime, messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram, which offer direct integration with phone contacts and add friends automatically, but also guarantee enhanced end-to-end encryption, have grown continuously, making BBM a rather outdated solution.
It remains to be seen if BlackBerry is indeed leaving Windows phones completely or maybe this is just the beginning of a new strategy that would have all clients redesigned, but if you were hoping to see BBM landing as a universal app, you must know that there are very small chances to see this happening.