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Cape Town - As part of its cross-platform strategy, BlackBerry announced on Thursday that BBM is available for Windows Phone devices.
BBM or BlackBerry Messenger, was part of the revolution in mobile instant messaging applications when it launched in 2005. However, it was only available to BlackBerry users.
The growth of cross-platform applications like WhatsApp and WeChat in part prompted the company to expand the service to non-BlackBerry devices.
"The BBM app for Windows Phone shows our commitment to supporting cross-platform capabilities, and we are excited to be working with Microsoft to deliver a new level of collaboration to the Windows Phone platform," said John Sims, president of Global Enterprise Services at BlackBerry.
BlackBerry has 85 million subscribers on BBM and has seen success in launching the platform to Android and iOS devices. However, this pales in comparison to WeChat at over 300 million and WhatsApp at over 500 million.
Market share
In fact, part of the reason that Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19bn is the fact that it is globally popular, unlike WeChat which has its main user base in China.
But BBM availability on Windows Phone is a good deal for Microsoft as well.
The operating system has been struggling to eat into the dominance of Android on mobile devices.
Strategy Analytics' data showed that Android shipped on 249.6 million devices (85% market share) in the last three months, compared to iOS at 35.2 million (11.9%), and Microsoft in third at eight million (2.7%).
BlackBerry though, saw a massive erosion of its market share, plummeting to 1.9 million (0.6%), from 5.7 million last year.
Microsoft has been actively trying to convince manufacturers to experiment with Windows Phone, even going as far to give away licences for free.
The company hopes that BBM and other popular applications will drive users to the OS.
"We are intent on bringing the most popular application experiences to Windows Phone, and with BBM, we are pleased to bring many of its top features to the Windows Phone platform," said Bryan Biniak, vice president and general manager of Developer Experience at Microsoft.
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