Come Friday, May 31, 2019, the consumer version of the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), the social messaging service platform, will be shutdown. This announcement was made by Emtek, the Indonesia-based company that has held the BlackBerry license since 2016. The firm, however, said that BBM will still be in existence, and BlackBerry currently disclosed a plan to open its enterprise-version of BBM to general consumers.
Emtek, while announcing the closure of the service on its twitter handle, said, “We are proud of what we have built to date. The technology industry, however, is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on.”
“Though we are sad to say goodbye, the time has come to sunset the BBM consumer service, and for us to move on,” the company added.
What It Means To The BBM Consumers.
After the announced date for the shutdown, BBM users will no longer have access to view old messages, photos, or other files from the app, the company said in its Frequently Asked Questions section. Although, before the closure, users will be able to download photos, videos, and other files, they won’t be able to retain any stickers purchased or personalized emoji they may have created with the company’s BBMoji service.
What’s More From The Company?
BlackBerry Limited, formerly known as Research In Motion (RIM), has also announced that it has launched BlackBerry Enterprise (BBMe) which offers most of the features of the consumer version along with added end-to-end encryption, and will continue to function as normal. Alternatively, the company said the enterprise version can be installed on devices running android and iOS, windows or MAC operating systems.
“BBMe can be downloaded on any device that uses Android, iOS, Windows or MAC operating systems. The sender and recipient each have unique public/private encryption and signing keys. These keys are generated on the device by a FIPS 140-2 certified cryptographic library and are not controlled by BlackBerry. Each message uses a new symmetric key for message encryption. Additionally, TLS encryption between the device and BlackBerry’s infrastructure protects BBMe messages from eavesdropping or manipulation,” the company declared.
What’s Next For Enterprise Users?
As reported by RIM, Enterprise will be accessible through the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, the service will be free for one year, after which users will be charged $2.49 for a six-month subscription service. Although this enterprise version of the software, like the consumer version, still features group chats, voice and video calls and the ability to edit and retract messages.
About BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).
BlackBerry Messenger, popularly known as BBM, is a trademarked mobile instant messenger and videotelephony application founded in 2005 with a freemium license. BBM was the original “mobile-first” messaging service with about 43 million users worldwide as at May, 2011, according to Research in Motion, and was popular for a while before it started to lose out to rivals.
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