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One thing that I didn't see talked about with today's BB10 Dev Alpha update release, is that it includes BBM, and it works without BIS. I have it working on my Dev Alpha on wifi only, without SIM card inserted. It is linked to your BlackBerry ID.
This means that there is really nothing stopping them from putting BBM on PB now, as far as infrastructure is concerned.
For all you know, they might have set up your BB Dev Alpha's PIN so it is authenticated on the BIS server through WiFi. Similar to how you can use BBM on a regular BB using WiFi if you don't have data (but you do subscribe to BIS).
It would be awesome if BBM is available on all BB phones. I would pay a premium for it.
I still don't see that happening though. I hope I'm wrong.
Your right I see no reason why PlayBook should not have BBM. I was hoping to see it in 2.1 but was told not to be surprised if it is not. With that said it's looking like 2.1 could get here when it feels like it and I'm done waiting for it to be "soon".
BBM without BIS is as possible as AppWorld without BIS (and we already have that). It will come, specially now that it's no longer PIN-dependant.
It will still access the NOC and all that (just like WLM accesses Microsoft servers and gTalk accesses Google's servers). BIS may become a Java based requirement only.
And that may mean we all get stuck with generic data plans from carriers. I know I'll miss unlimited data if that so happens.