[Double_De]

In Barbados 95 % of phones were BlackBerry smartphones not because of the cross platform BBM only 20 are interested in BlackBerry (if that much) all to Samsung beginning to think BBM cross platform is bad very BAD idea

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[Double_De]

Now*

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[FFR]

In Barbados 95 % of phones were BlackBerry smartphones not because of the cross platform BBM only 20 are interested in BlackBerry (if that much) all to Samsung beginning to think BBM cross platform is bad very BAD idea

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Called it.

[Double_De]

Sighhhh and it's to late to back out I hope apple doesn't approve of it lol


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[Bluline79]

I saw that coming. Blackberry needs to up their game in just about every aspect to make people realize how great of a product it actually is.

[--TommesJay--]

Yeah who cares. At least those guys will likely download BBM on the platform they jump ship to and therefore give BBM the chance to stay alive. That's the point and that's 1,000 times more important than selling crappy secondary phones people buy just for BBM until they ultimately ditch it and go for an alternate messenger. Keeping BBM exclusive to chain people to low budget devices isn't a substantial business model. Do you guys get that?

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[dusdal]

It may be that I am just missing the humor? Haha.

Just in case it isn't a funny, source?

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[Double_De]

Ok that's good say we have 60 million BBM users and only 2 million have blackberry then what's the point so another app will be there to take out BBM over time


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[GTiLeo]

so BBM holds value for the company.
BBM can be an advertising front for BlackBerry, also gets the knews out that BlackBerry is still around and not dead on the contrary to what media fronts like to tell people

[app_Developer]

Ok that's good say we have 60 million BBM users and only 2 million have blackberry then what's the point so another app will be there to take out BBM over time

It's hard to switch group messaging networks, though. Once you get a particular group of people using a BBM group, then everyone in that group has to almost switch at once for them to go to a new app.

So I like the cross platform BBM strategy. The company is bleeding users anyway, it makes sense to at least keep them in the BBM fold. Relative to other parts of the company, the BBM network may actually be a nice little asset.

[AnimalPak200]

I was just in Barbados in August (I lived there during my teenage years), and can confirm the steep shift from BlackBerry to iPhones and now Androids. Not to play social games, but most lower-income folk seem to still have BBs, while the seemingly 'better off' have moved on. On a slightly positive note (although maybe just a trailing note), all my friends down there that work in finance and law are still heavy BB users (mostly Bolds).

I've also seen a similar (or worse) drop amongst family and friends from El Salvador (Central America).

So yeah... the stats, although heart breaking, have never been in question.

[AnimalPak200]

I should also add that whatsapp has taken the cake as a result of the conversion.

And since I'm on whatsapp... I know people complain about BBM's 8-character pins, but have you ever tried to add friends with 14-digit international numbers (outside of the North American Numbering Plan)? Do you include the leading zeros, the leading 1, the country digits, oh wait, the '+' sign too? Horrible.

[DSL9700]

Ok that's good say we have 60 million BBM users and only 2 million have blackberry then what's the point so another app will be there to take out BBM over time

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Very short sighted. Think about this... whatsapp has 300 000 000 million users, if smartphones sales continue and bbm becomes more popular than whatsapp= 400, 000 000 million users. and say they can get ARPU of 3 dollars through bbm, purchase of stickers, games, advertising etc. that would be 1 200 000 000 a year. it could be a money maker.. hardware is a tough buisness these days with the chinese, software is where the cash is.

[Fnen90]

Yeah who cares. At least those guys will likely download BBM on the platform they jump ship to and therefore give BBM the chance to stay alive. That's the point and that's 1,000 times more important than selling crappy secondary phones people buy just for BBM until they ultimately ditch it and go for an alternate messenger. Keeping BBM exclusive to chain people to low budget devices isn't a substantial business model. Do you guys get that?

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Oh, so you care? ...you and most of CrackBerry fans are so blind with BlackBerry that that's what is affecting more and more the company because you think everything is perfect and don't care who buys or if BlackBerry is sinking because people are changing platforms. WE, YOU should care and start worrying about us with BlackBerry. My opinion...

[JasW]

Very short sighted. Think about this... whatsapp has 300 000 000 million users, if smartphones sales continue and bbm becomes more popular than whatsapp= 400, 000 000 million users. and say they can get ARPU of 3 dollars through bbm, purchase of stickers, games, advertising etc. that would be 1 200 000 000 a year. it could be a money maker.. hardware is a tough buisness these days with the chinese, software is where the cash is.

Whoa, slow down. How many users does BBM have right now? I would say the absolute maximum would be the vaunted 72 million figure that has been thrown out there (but no longer updated) as the BB handheld userbase. Not all of those users are using BBM of course. So say it's 50 million, which I think is still an inflated figure. How is BBM going to grow to 400 million??? Do you really think iOS and Android users are going to d/l BBM in droves, that is to the tune of 350 million people?

It's already an incredibly competitive arena -- Whatsapp has the Latin American userbase locked up, WeChat and a couple of others have a lock on the Asian userbase, etc. There would have to be a wholesale abandonment of those platforms and a shift to BBM. Note that I'm not comparing the platforms or saying one is better than the other, just looking at it objectively. Sh!t happens, so you never know, but for BBMX to have that kind of sudden success seems unlikely in the extreme.

[cgk]

Am I missing a post? Where are these stats of 95% to 20% coming from?

[undone]

It's already an incredibly competitive arena -- Whatsapp has the Latin American userbase locked up, WeChat and a couple of others have a lock on the Asian userbase, etc. There would have to be a wholesale abandonment of those platforms and a shift to BBM. Note that I'm not comparing the platforms or saying one is better than the other, just looking at it objectively. Sh!t happens, so you never know, but for BBMX to have that kind of sudden success seems unlikely in the extreme.

Nothing is ever locked up. Every tech company that succeeds proves that. I don't know about the other chat clients, but I know BB has been investing in some interesting things, like payments/money transfers over BBM. With a proven NOC for security, they will be a go to for this kind of stuff. Right, so, how much do they make per transaction? These are the things the other chat clients can't compete at or at the very least would have to heavily invest into. Money and security go hand in hand.

[JasW]

Nothing is ever locked up. Every tech company that succeeds proves that. I don't know about the other chat clients, but I know BB has been investing in some interesting things, like payments/money transfers over BBM. With a proven NOC for security, they will be a go to for this kind of stuff. Right, so, how much do they make per transaction? These are the things the other chat clients can't compete at or at the very least would have to heavily invest into. Money and security go hand in hand.

I don't disagree, it's theoretically possible to undo the lock those other platforms have because of superior offerings, user fickleness, whatever. But you have to admit it's a long shot. The "interesting things" on BBM aren't there or may not have much appeal to the masses in developing countries. And, of course, to get back O/T, this risks destroying whatever is left of the BB handheld business because people will just buy cheap Androids and d/l BBMX. Or could, I should say, because the odds are better that they'll just continue buying cheap Androids and using Whatsapp or WeChat.

[DSL9700]

Whoa, slow down. How many users does BBM have right now? I would say the absolute maximum would be the vaunted 72 million figure that has been thrown out there (but no longer updated) as the BB handheld userbase. Not all of those users are using BBM of course. So say it's 50 million, which I think is still an inflated figure. How is BBM going to grow to 400 million??? Do you really think iOS and Android users are going to d/l BBM in droves, that is to the tune of 350 million people?

It's already an incredibly competitive arena -- Whatsapp has the Latin American userbase locked up, WeChat and a couple of others have a lock on the Asian userbase, etc. There would have to be a wholesale abandonment of those platforms and a shift to BBM. Note that I'm not comparing the platforms or saying one is better than the other, just looking at it objectively. Sh!t happens, so you never know, but for BBMX to have that kind of sudden success seems unlikely in the extreme.

Whatsapp has nothing locked up. I would put India, South East Asia, Canada, USA, UK, MIddle East, Carribean, Africa as all places BBM can legit overtake whatsapp. 400 million is quite possible.

[Roo Zilla]

Nothing is ever locked up. Every tech company that succeeds proves that. I don't know about the other chat clients, but I know BB has been investing in some interesting things, like payments/money transfers over BBM. With a proven NOC for security, they will be a go to for this kind of stuff. Right, so, how much do they make per transaction? These are the things the other chat clients can't compete at or at the very least would have to heavily invest into. Money and security go hand in hand.

People don't care about those. All they care about is what their friends are using. Money for now, is a non-issue since most don't have it, not to mention for it to catch on it would require a massive investment in infrastructure by multiple entities. Security..... people just don't care.

[garnok]

Whatsapp has nothing locked up. I would put India, South East Asia, Canada, USA, UK, MIddle East, Carribean, Africa as all places BBM can legit overtake whatsapp. 400 million is quite possible.

i'm sure BBM will quickly become one top downloaded apps in indonesia and maybe india, philipines, and other BB key markets

but it will hit BB phone sales very hard in their key markets, for them BBM = BB so what's the point buying BB phone if you can use BBM in other phone.

[undone]

People don't care about those. All they care about is what their friends are using. Money for now, is a non-issue since most don't have it, not to mention for it to catch on it would require a massive investment in infrastructure by multiple entities. Security..... people just don't care.

People that use any sort of money transfer care, talking Western Union and the like. Heck even criminals can find a nice use for money transfers. Look up the Silk road and Bitcoins. There is lots of shadow banking....

[garnok]

People that use any sort of money transfer care, talking Western Union and the like. Heck even criminals can find a nice use for money transfers. Look up the Silk road and Bitcoins. There is lots of shadow banking....

BBM money not offering something new to the market, there are already many banking apps offering same thing.

even in indonesia (BBM money right now only available in here) not many people using it from less then 100.000 while BB already have 12 million subscribers in here

no ads about BBM money, not many people know BBM Money exist, plus they dont have any merchant/store offering Payment from BBM Money, and even their Bank partner not even on top 5 largest bank in indonesia.

[--TommesJay--]

Oh, so you care? ...you and most of CrackBerry fans are so blind with BlackBerry that that's what is affecting more and more the company because you think everything is perfect and don't care who buys or if BlackBerry is sinking because people are changing platforms. WE, YOU should care and start worrying about us with BlackBerry. My opinion...

The point of my post was that BBM exclusiveness isn't a substantial solution for BBRY in the long run. The only areas where people still buy BlackBerrys in droves are emerging markets and in most cases it's because of BBM. But whats most important is, that even in these markets people are increasingly jumping ship, using other platforms as their main devices, while keeping an old BlackBerry or buying a new cheap one as their secondary device for no other reason than BBM. But this won't work forever. We're in the middle of a transition and this transition moves from "BBM on BBRYs" to "whatever messaging client on iOS and Android". More and more people in emerging markets buy cheap Android phones, use WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber, Kik and sorts. And the more people do this, the more redundant gets BBM, until they finally ditch BBRYs and BBM completely. This is why chaining people to cheap BBRY devices per BBM exclusiveness isn't substantial. BBRYs hardware business, at this stage, is going down the drain, that's a fact, whether BBM is exclusive or not. The only thing BBM exclusiveness can do is slow down this trend a little bit, but only for low cost BBRYs in emergimg markets. On the other hand, the longer BBM stays exclusive, the more irrelevant it will get by the time it goes cross platform. So in the end, with this scenario where BBM keeps being ecclusive, both BBRY as a hardware brand and BBM as a messaging service are completely f*ed in the long run.

But if you make it cross platform now, in the middle of this transition, people who abandon BBRY and buy an Android device will take BBM and their contacts with them. This maybe able to keep BBM a chair at the table, because platform switchers will just continue to use BBM, the service they use for years. From hereon, where BBM keeps being somehow relevant, it can expand again, even helping BBRY as a hardware brand staying relevant or becoming relevant again. It's pretty much the only chance they have.

So if people on Barbados now ditch their BBRY phones in droves because they can use BBM on Android devices, I'm fine with that, because it shows us that BBM keeps being their messenger of choice. Anyone who sees this and concludes that BBM going cross platform was the wrong move are nothing but shortsighted.

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[BoldPreza]

Honestly in think that is where the future of BlackBerry is. They would still be a communication company and business services company I think this strategy then works really well especially if they start to use the noc across platform.

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