BlackBerry Messenger for Android coming this summer

BlackBerry Messenger for Android is finally in the works, the company has announced, with the release date set for this summer.
BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins has announced the surprising news (especially since the company said at one point that BBM would remain exclusive to its own devices) during the BlackBerry Live event keynote today. The press release says that BBM is coming to Android and iOS this summer, for free, subject to approval from the respective app stores. BlackBerry Messenger will be available for devices running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or higher.

BBM is very popular among BlackBerry users, and it was only normal for BlackBerry to finally bring it to users of the most important mobile platform of the moment. The move is opening the service to a much wider range of possible users (current users will be able to add contacts from Android and iOS the moment the app becomes available).

What will BBM offer?

BlackBerry Messenger will be offering instant messaging with the popular “delivered” and “read” statuses, multi-person chats, as well as BBM Groups, allowing up to 30 people to be added to a group for group chatting. Also available will be sharing of images and voice notes.
Android users won't get BBM Channels, a feature announced today that lets users share content in BlackBerry Messenger, or voice and video chat, but the company promises that the Android version will get them “later this year”. Contacts will be added using a variety of methods, including PIN, email, SMS, or QR code scan, but Android users will also be able to connect using NFC.
With more than 60 million active users, out of which 51 million use it for an average of an hour and a half every day, BBM should at least bring an additional mean of communication to Android. We'll see whether users of Android actually need the app is released.
On the other hand, the arrival of BBM on other platforms could accelerate the move away from BlackBerry – users that were reluctant to switch to Android before might be more inclined to ditch their BlackBerries now that they can keep using BBM on the new platform.
Do you plan on using BlackBerry Messenger when the Android version comes out?

Via:Engadget

Source:BlackBerry Blog

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