Blackberry Messenger Shutting Down? Why is it for good anyway?
Blackberry messenger, commonly known as BBM, was a messaging service by Blackberry that allowed users to send messages to each other. It was discontinued on 31st May 2019.
BBM was a great feature as it enabled users to send messages for free. This gave BBM a privilege since they could SMS each other without any cost.
It also had features like a group chat where friends, family or business organizations could interact conveniently. You could also send voice notes and video chat seamlessly.
It should be noted that BBM was not only available for Blackberry phones. This messaging app could also be downloaded on Android phones and on iPhones.
Blackberry’s Chief Marketing Officer, Mark Wilson, however, announced the discontinuation of this app on May 31. But what was the reason for Blackberry Messenger Shutting down?
Blackberry Messenger Shutting Down For Good
Drop In Popularity
Blackberry Messenger increasingly began to lose users and failed to attract new ones. The dispersion of customers could have certainly caused profits to plummet down, making it’s discontinuation a prudent step. The tech giant was hence compelled to scrap off the consumer version of BBM. BBM Enterprise was apparently opened which was meant for the devoted fans who felt like they could not live without it.
Competition
This is another reason for the disappearance of BBM in the market. The messaging app faced stiff competition from other bigwigs in its category such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook and Snap. These popular apps proved to be more enticing than BBM. In an effort to resuscitate it, Uber was surprisingly added to BBM. The company also went ahead and sued Twitter and Facebook, citing that their patent had been infringed. This however did not have any effect on more users signing into it, BBM dwindled and was yet to be forgotten.
These hurdles finally led to the Blackberry messenger shutting down for good. Just as they wrote on their farewell blog post, users moving on to other platforms and failing to sign in new ones made the continuation of the app impossible.
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