BlackBerry Messenger Coming To Android This Summer; Will BlackBerry Shake-Up Apps?

BlackBerry has long lagged behind in both phone sales and apps compared to Android and iOS phones. The company is now making attempts at revival, they launched the Z10 smartphone in March which will get the Blackberry 10.1 platform. The Z10 and upcoming Q10 are said to be favorably compared to other top of the line smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5 but their sales have not matched expectations. The lower priced Q5, with a keyboard, is intended for developing markets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Blackberry pushed to get app developers and now have more than 120,000 apps, still far fewer than the half-million that the Google Play Store and Apple App Store have. The decision to have BlackBerry offer popular services like BBM with Android is an intelligent one. It still lacks highly popular apps like Instagram and Skype only recently was made compatible for the Z10.

While the software platform QNX has many similar functionalities and could be offered on other devices (cars are apparently being considered), its unlikely QNX will ever truly catch up with Android or iOS in terms of popularity. BBM will offer video screen share, voice and connected apps: Facebook®, Twitter®, BBM™ Music, BlackBerry® Travel™ app and BlackBerry® World™ are now BBM connected apps. So you can share your Facebook status update, Tweet, songs, travel itinerary or apps directly to contacts through BBM, without ever leaving the BBM connected apps.

Cross-platform functionality is the way forward for BlackBerry. Some analysts believe it could bring serious changes to the market, "It will increase feature competition among mobile messaging platforms," said Ben Wood from CSS Insight, a telecoms consultancy, he added "It dramatically increases BBM's long-term relevance - but it is unclear how Blackberry will ensure the move benefits its own hardware sales." That seems to be the major difficutly facing BlackBerry right now.

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