Blackberry Messenger Consumer version will be shut down by May 31

The 13-year-old Blackberry Messenger, more commonly known as BBM is about to shut down by next month. The consumer version of the messenger will be shut down by Emtek, who has been managing the messenger since 2016. Emtek has announced the closure of the BBM (the consumer version) from May 31st, this year. However, this isn’t the complete end to the oldest and yet popular app BBM as the company has plans to have an enterprise version of the very same app as well.

Blackberry messenger was considered to be the most popular app even before, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger existed in the first place. Though the BBM was exclusive for the Blackberry owners only, the app had offered several features that standard texting couldn’t provide. BBM had however become cross-platform later to Android and iOS platforms, which had been already dominated by the messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and more. The company believes that despite their substantial efforts to retain to BBM, consumers have chosen to other most popular messaging apps out there; thus the shut down of the BBM has become imminent.

As stated, it is essential to note that this isn’t the end to BBM, since the enterprise version named BBMe will be available to consumers on both Android and iOS platforms. The BBMe is said to be offering all the existing features of the BBM, for instance, end-to-end encrypted messages, group chats, voice calls, and video calls and ability to edit messages as well. Since this is an enterprise version users need to pay $2.49 for six months to utilize the service, however, the company is offering the service for free for the first year. As the free version of the BBM has already fallen behind the existing messaging apps, it is still speculative on how the consumers would receive this enterprise version of BBM. Stay tuned to PhoneRadar for more such interesting updates.