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BlackBerry Was Asked 4 Years Ago To Tackle Whatsapp But Refused

Four years ago, a former employee of BlackBerry who is now the founder of Kik messaging app, Ted Livingston, told executives in BlackBerry to make BBM available to both Android and iPhone so that it can curb the strength Whatsapp is having on these devices but this advice went on deaf hears.


According to Ted, who worked for BlackBerry as an engineer while a mechatronics student at University of Waterloo persuaded BlackBerry executives to expand BBM to other platforms with the rise of Android and iOS and they absolutely refused.

He says he understands their point of view as people buy BlackBerry because of its BBM and releasing BBM to other platforms poses a serious risk.

Ted Livingston later left BlackBerry due to their hardheadedness  to create his own app known as Kik that was cross platform and became extremely popular. Kik has about 90 million users to date while BlackBerry has only 60 million users. This popularity made BlackBerry to sue Ted for patent infringement but was settled finally.

According to Ted, "BBM was the killer app and chat apps are still the killer apps of consumer smartphones, if RIM had spun BBM out of the company and let an independent company run with (as a cross platform service) it would be big enough to rival Facebook"

Of course, this gentle advice that BlackBerry disregarded is now been put into action and soon, BBm will go cross-platform

Like our Facebook Page and Follow on Twitter to know when BBM finally drops on Android and iOS
 
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Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 8, 2013 at 3:35 PM

    I still prefer what's app to BBM.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OlaryeankarhOctober 10, 2013 at 12:19 AM

    If only BlackBerry had paid heed to the advice back then... Well, who knows?

    Am I justified to say 'RIP BlackBerry' yet?

    ReplyDelete
  3. PhonegistOctober 10, 2013 at 12:28 AM

    Well, its not an immediate death but a slow one if something isn't done quickly especially on the pricing of blackberry phones

    ReplyDelete
  4. Engr CrownNovember 10, 2013 at 7:19 PM

    A good and competent IT blogger you are; Akin.
    One particular thing i dislike about 'Blackburial' is their nonchallant attitudes to customers'r reviews and complaints. For so many years they were stagnant in decisions to upgrade, ammend/correct various flaws and anomalies we all know with the phone. I usually refer to BB as a 'Hanging Machine.'
    Now that Blackberry finally awoke from RIM, things will definitely get rosier.

    ReplyDelete

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