We all know the days of the Blackberry phone are clearly over.  Barring some miracle, or the invention of a time machine, these little devices will cease to exist.  Now BBM on the other hand is doing just fine.  In fact, after making BBM(Blackberry Messenger) available to Android and Iphone users last week, the company reported 10 million downloads in 24 hours! Shooting them to the top of the app rankings.  Not too shabby for a walking corpse!

The personal messenger market is very stiff, with people like Whatsapp and Tango holding strong it is hard to break in, but blackberry has its advantages.  BBM users are very loyal, and having a messenger app linked to the phone was instrumental in creating that loyalty.

Recently, Blackberry announced that they are making BBM available on desktops.  That would be an excellent idea.  They also plan on allowing voice and video chat on the platform! Skype and Oovoo should definitely be worried! Or should they?  Blackberry just demoed the BBM for desktop app at Blackberry Jam Asia, and somebody decided that it would be a good idea to require the user to connect the phone to the desktop in order for the desktop application to work!  *hand to head* They just can’t seem to get out of their own way.   So you mean in order for me to send a message from my desktop, I would need to get my phone, connect it to the computer, and then send the message????  What a ridonculous idea! (yeah I said ridONCulous!)

Blackberry execs, please get this right. you are on the right track, BBM is still hugely popular, and there is tremendous loyalty among current blackberry users.  Now it is important to open it up, so that the friends of these loyal BBM users can interact with them.  Give yourself a chance to make a comeback and get rid of the the phone requirement once and for all! and while you’re  at it don’t forget to ………………………..Stay Mobile!