Now three days after the promised launch date, BlackBerry has come out to say its facing serious challenges launching BBM on Android and iPhones. A A challenge serious enough the company has ruled out launching this week. “This will take some time and I do not anticipate launching this week” said the head of BBM at BlackBerry, Andrew Bocking in a post on the company’s blog.
The challenges first came to light in an update the company issue on Sunday where it said an unreleased version of the Android app, which had found its way into the wild of the internet via file sharing sites, had been installed by more than 1 million Android users. In the latest update however, Bocking reveals that this leaked version has bugs causing an unusual amount of traffic on the platform.
For company whose image is in the negative, this of course doesn’t help matters at all. BBM is one of the few things the company seemed to still be loved for by its customers, as the well as the one thing they are known even by non-users to deliver so well, Android and iPhone users are curious to try it and see how it compares to other popular IM apps like WhatsApp and WeChat. Them botching the launch like so just us wonder if there’s anything in there to wait for.
You will also remember that this is not the first time BlackBerry has struggled with BBM.
Meanwhile, reports say the company is finally set to be acquired by a company called Fairfax Financial for approximately US $4.7 billion. According to an announcement of the acquisition, Fairfax have said they will we be continuing the execution of BlackBerry’s long-term strategy to deliver solutions to their customers. Given the decline the company has witnessed, and all these botched product events, we are not sure continuation along a path, is the wisest of moves.
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6 comments
The fact that over 1 million users downloaded the bbm android app before they suspended it highlights 2 things
1. The problems that at Blackberry could not keep up with competition or innovate fast enough in a fast & competitive smartphone market.
2. The potential way forward in terms of strategy for the new Blackberry
IBM was in a similar position and they have reinvented themselves to a software service company with great results.
Its unfortunate the Blackberry Board refused a buyout proposal for $6 billion by Robin Chan to only now be bought at a discount for US $4.7 billion especially considering that Blackberry has $2.6 billion in cash and 5 000 patents worth $2 billion + a user base of 70 million. Now thats a bargain.
If BlackBerry does go private, it would be the second large technology company with outdated products to go that route this year, following Dell going private with the owner buying out the other shareholders for $24 billion +/-
Find the buyout offer from Robin Chan at http://www.slideshare.net/robinhbchan/project-bbx . The guy was practically saying they should ditch the Blackberry OS for android & refocus to the enterprise market.
Under the current circumstances, Blackberry has no choice but to go android. I am sure the two major mobile os will be ios and android. Microsoft will have to play a clever game with their surface devices if they have to up their game and that leaves android as the only sensible venture.
I just hope they wont go the Tom Anderson way.
Amazing how a company would prefer to be bankrupt than go for a tried, tested and popular OS (Android). I am not sure whats their logic. Some companies who were days from bankruptcy were “rescued” by Android…this includes HTC, Sony, LG even Samsung weren’t doing that well until Android came.
I hope and pray to see an Android Blackberry soon.
Couldn’t be said better, Someone should pull up an Android for BB campaign on causes.