Hoping to talk to your misguided BlackBerry-using friends over an official version of BlackBerry Messenger? Don’t hold your breath. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the BBM clients that Research in Motion had been testing for other platforms, including Android, have been taken off the development table. You can thank RIM CEO Thorsten Heins for the decision.

Yup, that Thorsten Heins. You know, the one who said that all Android phones look the same (seriously, the guy in charge of making BlackBerrys actually said that) and used some fuzzy math to declare that BlackBerry apps make more money than Android apps. It’s not much of a shock that this guy isn’t willing to play nice with other platforms – and it’s even less of a shock that he’s leading RIM into a laughable market position with just 6.4% smartphone share, down from 44% five years ago. Android’s currently sitting pretty with 59%.

We know that RIM had been working on BBM for multiple platforms, and we’ve seen the prototype app a couple of times. According to the report, RIM had been hiding the application on their developer devices as “SMS 2.0”. Reasoning for the decision was given as a refocus on the new BlackBerry 10 operating system, set to debut next year. Meanwhile, BBM itself seems to be dropping users just as fast as BlackBerry – one user reported that her BBM contact list had dropped from over a hundred contacts to just twenty-six.

[via SlashGear]

20 COMMENTS

  1. Its funny, all of my friends who switched to android from blackberry – were super happy and said they would never go back.

  2. Well… It’s the eve of BB’s fall…. Eventhough whatsapp and Liveprofile work well, we will prefer an open BB app…. Maybe Rim wants to kick us out to other smart phones such as The i-phone….

  3. RIM will only turn around if they finally decide to focus on what made them successful. Its too bad they wont look at it that way and seem determined to try and compete with the social phones.
    Its a business tool and that is what it should be used as. With all the apps and other stuff they try to promote it has become essentially a boat anchor.

  4. oh well i remember when i got my htc hero and all my friends had BB now they all have android phones apart from 2 of them and they use whatsapp so who cares if there’s no bbm for android i have whatsapp

  5. Andriod Phones are the bet blackberrys are crap im mean spec wise androids are better what u get for ur money is well better and blackberrys as i tell my friends i wouldnt wipe my rear end with one the are a pile of crap.

  6. Well it seems Blackberry has had its day.. unless they listen to their potential market.. which now have moved on to android.. I am one of those,who got fed up with its limited apps on blackberry world.. new handsets now look dated and problematic.. rim should stop being purists like apple and give the world a handset they like.

  7. never had an operating system on an android crash on me, but sure have had it happen many times when i owned a blackberry. no hope for rim sorry to tell you.

  8. never had an operating system on an android crash on me, but sure have had it happen many times when i owned a blackberry. no hope for rim sorry to tell you.

  9. I had a black berry for 2 months funny thing i actually broke the phone in two with my bare hands never again will i buy a black berry i now have a sumsung galaxy and an uncapped wi fi, so i no longer need black berrys slow internet and useless OS

  10. How is it that YOURS is the only article stating that BBM is no longer coming to Android or IOS yet a simple google for RIM BBM on Android shows articles where that it is Heins himself that states BBM is coming to both platforms for free! Get your facts straight or are you just blogging office gossip since you’re too lazy to check your facts?!

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