BlackBerry today announced that BBM is coming to Windows Phone next week. First announced at Mobile World Congress, a private beta of BBM for Windows Phone opened up a few weeks back that saw all 10,000 testing slots taken up within 24 hours. It follows the launch last year of BBM for Android and iOS as BlackBerry finally realized that BBM had to go cross-platform to stay relevant (and even woo old customers back).
Taking BBM to other platforms is an important move for BlackBerry. Sure, it’s an invitation to former users to come back. We know that people love BBM, but may have stopped using it in recent years because they couldn’t use it on other handsets. We’d love to have them back.
But the bigger story is that cross-platform mobile messaging apps are big and getting bigger. That’s in part because they’re competing with—and winning against—SMS services.
Much like other versions of BBM, BBM for Windows Phone will support Chat for one-on-one or group conversations and Feeds to follow contact status updates. A number of features currently available on other operating systems will not be immediately available. Stickers, BBM Voice, Channels and location sharing will all be added over the coming months.
BlackBerry had also announced that a version of BBM would be coming to the Nokia X line of smartphones. No announcement was made about the fate of this version but it’s unlikely to ever see the light of day given Microsoft’s decision to put an end to the Nokia X line in favour of focusing on Windows Phone.
Source : Inside BlackBerry Blog