[R1R]

It's over!

After the customer shut down of BBM in May 2019 it more than ever feels like BlackBerry has reached it's definite end.

Sure there were countless setbacks from the times of the company's golden age until now but for me nothing ever felt as definitely as the shut down of BlackBerry Messenger last year.

As this might come as a surprise to some let me explain to you why I feel like that.

A little more than a decade ago a BlackBerry was by far the coolest Mobile device on the market and owning one was simply special.
Having one enabled you to do things with your phone that no other phone was capable of.
The BlackBerry had features other phones simply didn't have back than.
Features like an email client, a highly functional web browser and of course the infamous BlackBerry Messenger.

There was no WhatsApp, LINE, Viber, WeChat or any other messenger for a mobile device at this time.
There was MSN and ICQ for the usage on a desktop computer or notebook but for your phone there was nothing else but SMS.

If you had friends or family outside your residence country and you didn't want to spend a load of money anytime you were sending them a short message from a mobile device, owning a BlackBerry and using BBM was inevitable.
This made BlackBerry unbelievable popular with expats and international business people.

When my international friends convinced me to get my first device and I started using BBM it made me feel like becoming part of a technical advanced international community of people ahead of their time.

Nowadays the Sony-Ericssons and other feature phones that people outside the "BlackBerry world" used back than are gone.
Owning a smartphone is nothing special anymore at all.
A browser, email client and free messenger services are absolutely standard.
BlackBerry is not on top of the smartphone market anymore and doesn't even have an own operating system.
BlackBerry is nothing more than one out of many brands on the market of Android bases smartphones.
Sure they still have features like the physical keyboard other brands don't have (and I wouldn't want to miss) but there is definitely no feeling of exclusiveness and standing out of the crowd by using a BlackBerry phone like there was before at all.

There was one absolutely final last thing though that reminded me of the good old days and made BlackBerry feel like BlackBerry - it was using the BlackBerry Messenger.

Even though you were using it on an Android device. Even though was not exclusive for BlackBerry anymore but available for any smartphone on the market and even though numberless other messenger services exist.
BMM was BBM.
It was that very same messenger service that you used to talk to you friends and partners in UAE, Singapore and anywhere else in the world at the time when BlackBerry was the coolest thing in the world.

Also, the fact it still existed enabled you to communicate with any old Curve, Bold, Torch, any other device that didn't support WhatsApp anymore.
If I felt like using my old Bold for a couple of days I was able to do so because I was able to chat with anyone I convinced to download BBM (since it became available for Android and even IOS).
The Internet functions were outdated but if you didn´t need much it did it`s job as a daily driver.
As BBM shut down support, these old devices suddenly turned into dumbphones that are left with not much more than basic phone functions.

Even the BBOS10 devices became unsuitable as daily drivers as they leak a functional messaging service. (I know about what's fixer on BBOS10 but I'm simply not 100% satisfied enough with how it works so that I would use it on a daily basis).
I loved the Q10 and Passport but I can´t use a phone without messaging service.

So looking back in History now, I feel that moment apple released the IPhone and other smartphone was a setback.
When companies like Samsung slowly became capable of doing the same things a BlackBerry could do, it was a setback.
When BlackBerry started making horrible touch screen devices like the Storm, it was a setback.
When almost every former BlackBerry user switched to another brand and you became basically the last one using one (except Mr. Obama), it was a setback.
When BlackBerry OS was replaced by android it was a setback (but also had it's benefits).

But the end of BBM is a catastrophe!

In my eyes and feels much more like the actually end of BlackBerry than any bad thing that happened in the past.

It suddenly made any pre-android BlackBerry device almost worthless and it took the last thing away that made BlackBerry feel like BlackBerry.

For me there is nothing now that gives me back that feeling of owning a BlackBerry in the zeros. Owning the KEY2 now just feels (and looks) like owning any other Android phone.

The fact there is no BBOS anymore, the fact there is no Device in a classical BlackBerry design that is suitable to be used as a daily driver and the fact that now BBM doesn`t even exist anymore makes me even feel like BlackBerry doesn´t exist anymore.

Does anyone here agree with me or do you think it was already over long before the end of BBM? Or do you even think it´s still not over?
Does BlackBerry still feel anything like BlackBerry in the zeros to you by now? And what messengers are you guys using now?

Thanks for your answers.

With best regards.

R1R

[conite]

It's over!

After the customer shut down of BBM in May 2019 it more than ever feels like BlackBerry has reached it's definite end.

Sure there were countless setbacks from the times of the company's golden age until now but for me nothing ever felt as definitely as the shut down of BlackBerry Messenger last year.

As this might come as a surprise to some let me explain to you why I feel like that.

A little more than a decade ago a BlackBerry was by far the coolest Mobile device on the market and owning one was simply special.
Having one enabled you to do things with your phone that no other phone was capable of.
The BlackBerry had features other phones simply didn't have back than.
Features like an email client, a highly functional web browser and of course the infamous BlackBerry Messenger.

There was no WhatsApp, LINE, Viber, WeChat or any other messenger for a mobile device at this time.
There was MSN and ICQ for the usage on a desktop computer or notebook but for your phone there was nothing else but SMS.

If you had friends or family outside your residence country and you didn't want to spend a load of money anytime you were sending them a short message from a mobile device, owning a BlackBerry and using BBM was inevitable.
This made BlackBerry unbelievable popular with expats and international business people.

When my international friends convinced me to get my first device and I started using BBM it made me feel like becoming part of a technical advanced international community of people ahead of their time.

Nowadays the Sony-Ericssons and other feature phones that people outside the "BlackBerry world" used back than are gone.
Owning a smartphone is nothing special anymore at all.
A browser, email client and free messenger services are absolutely standard.
BlackBerry is not on top of the smartphone market anymore and doesn't even have an own operating system.
BlackBerry is nothing more than one out of many brands on the market of Android bases smartphones.
Sure they still have features like the physical keyboard other brands don't have (and I wouldn't want to miss) but there is definitely no feeling of exclusiveness and standing out of the crowd by using a BlackBerry phone like there was before at all.

There was one absolutely final last thing though that reminded me of the good old days and made BlackBerry feel like BlackBerry - it was using the BlackBerry Messenger.

Even though you were using it on an Android device. Even though was not exclusive for BlackBerry anymore but available for any smartphone on the market and even though numberless other messenger services exist.
BMM was BBM.
It was that very same messenger service that you used to talk to you friends and partners in UAE, Singapore and anywhere else in the world at the time when BlackBerry was the coolest thing in the world.

Also, the fact it still existed enabled you to communicate with any old Curve, Bold, Torch, any other device that didn't support WhatsApp anymore.
If I felt like using my old Bold for a couple of days I was able to do so because I was able to chat with anyone I convinced to download BBM (since it became available for Android and even IOS).
The Internet functions were outdated but if you didn´t need much it did it`s job as a daily driver.
As BBM shut down support, these old devices suddenly turned into dumbphones that are left with not much more than basic phone functions.

Even the BBOS10 devices became unsuitable as daily drivers as they leak a functional messaging service. (I know about what's fixer on BBOS10 but I'm simply not 100% satisfied enough with how it works so that I would use it on a daily basis).
I loved the Q10 and Passport but I can´t use a phone without messaging service.

So looking back in History now, I feel that moment apple released the IPhone and other smartphone was a setback.
When companies like Samsung slowly became capable of doing the same things a BlackBerry could do, it was a setback.
When BlackBerry started making horrible touch screen devices like the Storm, it was a setback.
When almost every former BlackBerry user switched to another brand and you became basically the last one using one (except Mr. Obama), it was a setback.
When BlackBerry OS was replaced by android it was a setback (but also had it's benefits).

But the end of BBM is a catastrophe!

In my eyes and feels much more like the actually end of BlackBerry than any bad thing that happened in the past.

It suddenly made any pre-android BlackBerry device almost worthless and it took the last thing away that made BlackBerry feel like BlackBerry.

For me there is nothing now that gives me back that feeling of owning a BlackBerry in the zeros. Owning the KEY2 now just feels (and looks) like owning any other Android phone.

The fact there is no BBOS anymore, the fact there is no Device in a classical BlackBerry design that is suitable to be used as a daily driver and the fact that now BBM doesn`t even exist anymore makes me even feel like BlackBerry doesn´t exist anymore.

Does anyone here agree with me or do you think it was already over long before the end of BBM? Or do you even think it´s still not over?
Does BlackBerry still feel anything like BlackBerry in the zeros to you by now? And what messengers are you guys using now?

Thanks for your answers.

With best regards.

R1R

BlackBerry got out of both the consumer messaging business and the handset business entirely in 2016.

Via licencing, BBM and BlackBerry-branded devices lasted a bit longer, but it still wasn't BlackBerry. So I don't think anything has happened recently in this regard.

The only profit BlackBerry ever made prior to the current reorganization, was due to SAF revenue from carriers. The entire company was built on it.

The whole world has moved on to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. For those who have an issue with Facebook (or China), other platforms like Telegram, Line, Viber, and Signal are used. Anything else has less than 100 million users so they are essentially useless unless you are a closed group.

[Sigewif]

This is not accurate. BBMe (BlackBerry Messenger Enterprise) is available for individuals. When EMTEK quit last spring BlackBerry Ltd offered to allow BBMe to be used. It gave a free year and then a minimal app subscription that amounts to about $5 a year. I am in several active chat groups on BBMe. The messaging service has some excellent features.

[Bob80220]

Yep... BBMe is very much alive and well. I use it daily... 👍

Bob

[conite]

This is not accurate. BBMe (BlackBerry Messenger Enterprise) is available for individuals. When EMTEK quit last spring BlackBerry Ltd offered to allow BBMe to be used. It gave a free year and then a minimal app subscription that amounts to about $5 a year. I am in several active chat groups on BBMe. The messaging service has some excellent features.

Yes, we know. But the current 100-200k users on their enterprise-lite version is not really comparable to a full-fledged consumer messaging app like BBM used to be and others are now.

I think we can all appreciate the spirit of the original post.

[R1R]

BlackBerry got out of both the messaging business and the handset business entirely in 2016.

Via licencing, BBM and BlackBerry-branded devices lasted a bit longer, but it still wasn't BlackBerry. So I don't think anything has happened recently in this regard.

The only profit BlackBerry ever made prior to the current reorganization, was SAF revenue from carriers. The entire company was built on it.

The whole world has moved on to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. For those who have an issue with Facebook, other platforms like Telegram and Signal are used.

Sure, I´m aware of what happened in 2016. BBM has been sold to an Indonesian company but as a matter of fact it was still there and as I said compatible with any older version on any older device.

And also phones were still released since 2016.

I just thought it´s going to go on and maybe get better after all the downfall over all these years but it looks like I was wrong...

Another thing that bothers me is the fact that the product spectrum became so small and that there is no Android device with classical BlackBerry shape but I´m going to start another tread on this..

[conite]

Sure, I´m aware of what happened in 2016. BBM has been sold to an Indonesian company but as a matter of fact it was still there and as I said compatible with any older version on any older device.

And also phones were still released since 2016.

I just thought it´s going to go on and maybe get better after all the downfall over all these years but it looks like I was wrong...

Another thing that bothers me is the fact that the product spectrum became so small and that there is no Android device with classical BlackBerry shape but I´m going to start another tread on this..

No Blackberry phones were released since the fall of 2016 (DTEK60). Everything newer was manufactured and sold by licencees.

Emtek abandoned BBM because their user numbers fell off a cliff.

All those arrangements have now dried up, so there will be no more devices - at least for the foreseeable future.

BlackBerry is exclusively IoT, Cylance, and Licencing now.

[Bob80220]

My BBMe app is showing 1,000,000+ downloads.

Bob

[conite]

My BBMe app is showing 1,000,000+ downloads.

Bob

That's right. Retention rates for these kind of apps are usually 20% or less. Even the average churn rate is 75% (which means only 25% of people use the app after 90 days).

Plus, prior to the existence of the "lite" app, that download number was already between 100,000 and 500,000.

[Sigewif]

Yes, we know. But the current 100-200k users on their enterprise-lite version is not really comprable to a full-fledged consumer messaging app like BBM used to be and others are now.

I think we can all appreciate the spirit of the original post.

My comment was not about how many have signed up or are users , but because saying the BBM is gone is incorrect information. (Is there BBM or no BBM--that is the question ;-)) I wanted to bring facts into the picture. Comparing the EMTEK BBM to BBMe is besides the point. The point is, it exists. ( In my view I like the current BlackBerry in-house BBMe is better than the one Emtek produced. But that was not the point of my comment.)
A low ball estimate stated as a fact is not helpful. Perhaps it is true and perhaps it isn't. But that is beside the point. Someone looking to find an ongoing version of BBM should be told there is one.

[conite]

A low ball estimate stated as a fact is not helpful. Perhaps it is true and perhaps it isn't.

I'm using an average figure, using industry standards. I actually think it's lower than that, but that would become too speculative.

But sure, there is no harm in informing the OP about BBMe-lite. Although it's hardly on par with the ubiquity of other modern messaging apps. In that case, you might as well bring up Wickr Me, Dust, Silence, and Threema while you're at it.

[Chuck Finley69]

My comment was not about how many have signed up or are users , but because saying the BBM is gone is incorrect information. (Is there BBM or no BBM--that is the question ;-)) I wanted to bring facts into the picture. Comparing the EMTEK BBM to BBMe is besides the point. The point is, it exists. ( In my view I like the current BlackBerry in-house BBMe is better than the one Emtek produced. But that was not the point of my comment.)
A low ball estimate stated as a fact is not helpful. Perhaps it is true and perhaps it isn't. But that is beside the point. Someone looking to find an ongoing version of BBM should be told there is one.

To a person coming from BBM, the whole BBMe concept isn’t really what’s expected. It’s a pretty hollow app compared to where the messaging industry has evolved. I’m sure the OP is aware of BBMe and is lamenting the huge step backwards.

[bb10adopter111]

And, though it doesn't make the case for a return to dominance, BBM on BB10 is alive and well, too.

From the screen of my trusty Z10 using the exceptional BlackBerry VKB.

[Sigewif]

I'm using an average figure, using industry standards. I actually think it's lower than that, but that would become too speculative.

But sure, there is no harm in informing the OP about BBMe-lite. Although it's hardly on par with the ubiquity of other modern messaging apps. In that case, you might as well bring up Wickr Me, Dust, Silence, and Threema while you're at it.

Once again, that has nothing to do with the point of my comment. You are drilling down in the wrong place. Go ahead and keep drilling if yo prefer, but it is a waste of time.

[conite]

Once again, that has nothing to do with the point of my comment. You are drilling down in the wrong place. Go ahead and keep drilling if yo prefer, but it is a waste of time.

But I think it is the right place. BBMe-lite is hardly an alternative to BBM of old. Like I said, ubiquity itself defines it with respect to the days of yore.

[Sigewif]

To a person coming from BBM, the whole BBMe concept isn’t really what’s expected. It’s a pretty hollow app compared to where the messaging industry has evolved. I’m sure the OP is aware of BBMe and is lamenting the huge step backwards.

I am not sure that OP was aware of it or not. It may or may not be the case. But at face value, what was written means that OP didn't know. That is point of my comment, to clarify that for those who may read the post and take it at face value.
My post wasn't for those who do know and have opinions about the platform and how it compares with other platforms or how many are using it.
Have a nice rest of your day.

[Sigewif]

But I think it is the right place. BBe-lite is hardly an alternative to BBM of old. Like I said, ubiquity itself defines it.

That is a matter of opinion and not the point of my statement. Have a nice rest of the evening.

[Troy Tiscareno]

What made BBM useful was that most people you needed to message were (once) on it. A messaging platform that doesn't have any users that I want to communicate with is worthless regardless of its technical merits (or continued existence), and that is where BBM is today.

[i_plod_an_dr_void]

What made BBM useful was that most people you needed to message were (once) on it. A messaging platform that doesn't have any users that I want to communicate with is worthless regardless of its technical merits (or continued existence), and that is where BBM is today.

BB Me? I don't always drink secure messages, but when I do, I drink BBMe.
For secure messages I don't care if there are 800,000 or 1.5 billions users who once used Facebook loudspeakers to text private converstations. I only care to convey that secure message to one other user. BB Me (Not to be confused with Baby Yoda on the Mandalorian).

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/0..._set_to_close/

[PantherBlitz]

As this might come as a surprise to some let me explain to you why I feel like that.

The real surprise is that you are posting this in January 2020

what messengers are you guys using now?

They all have their pros and cons. Signal has a good reputation for privacy and simplicity but recently they have been adding features like stickers that may be a precursor to monetization.

[z10Jobe]

I use BBM every day.

Crystal clear voice and video calling. Has never let me down.

And no I don't care how many people use it. That what SMS texting is for.
Q10SQN100-1/10.3.3.3216

Posted via CB10

[bb10adopter111]

I use BBM every day.

Crystal clear voice and video calling. Has never let me down.

And no I don't care how many people use it. That what SMS texting is for.
Q10SQN100-1/10.3.3.3216

Posted via CB10

^This

I don't use messaging platforms with strangers, so I don't care about the billion users on some other platform. I only care about the people I'm messaging, and obviously, if I'm using BBM with them, they are already there!

Also, I have never had a single person refuse to install a messaging app I asked them to, whether it's BBM, Slack, MS Teams, Skype, Signal, etc.

From the screen of my trusty Z10 using the exceptional BlackBerry VKB.

[bakron1]

I understand all the frustration about BBM not being done in house like the old days, but I am still active in 5 BBMe groups and use it on a daily basis and as long as there are folks like myself out there still willing to keep it alive, it will still exist.

[nevilleadaniels]

I understand all the frustration about BBM not being done in house like the old days, but I am still active in 5 BBMe groups and use it on a daily basis and as long as there are folks like myself out there still willing to keep it alive, it will still exist.

Blackberry Messenger "Blackberry Messenger" was finally Asian.

Blackberry Messenger Enterprise "BBMe" is American/Canadian operated by BlackBerry themselves.

[goncal]

I understand all the frustration about BBM not being done in house like the old days, but I am still active in 5 BBMe groups and use it on a daily basis and as long as there are folks like myself out there still willing to keep it alive, it will still exist.

I still use BBM on my Passport and Classic to communicate with my daughters who are on Classics and my wife who is on BBMe on her Priv