This is an interesting development. A press release has hit the wires from BlackBerry announcing that leading Android OEMs will be preinstalling BBM on their devices:
Beginning next month, Android smartphones from Be, Brightstar, Celkon, EVERCOSS, IMO, Micromax, Mito, Snexian, Spice, TECNO, TiPhone and Zen will include BBM preinstalled. In addition, BlackBerry® (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB) confirmed that BBM will also continue to be available as a free download from Android app stores, including Google Play.
I don’t want to throw cold water on this. But these are OEMs that aren’t named HTC, Samsung, Motorola to name three. Instead these are OEMs that play in Africa, India, Indonesia, Latin America and the Middle East. Markets where BBM dominates which means that BlackBerry is trying to defend the hold it has on instant messaging in those markets. I would have liked to see a big name Android OEM step up to the table. Perhaps that’s coming. That will be big news when it happens. Still, this is a development worth noting.
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This entry was posted on November 26, 2013 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags BlackBerry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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BBM Preinstalled On Android Devices
This is an interesting development. A press release has hit the wires from BlackBerry announcing that leading Android OEMs will be preinstalling BBM on their devices:
Beginning next month, Android smartphones from Be, Brightstar, Celkon, EVERCOSS, IMO, Micromax, Mito, Snexian, Spice, TECNO, TiPhone and Zen will include BBM preinstalled. In addition, BlackBerry® (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB) confirmed that BBM will also continue to be available as a free download from Android app stores, including Google Play.
I don’t want to throw cold water on this. But these are OEMs that aren’t named HTC, Samsung, Motorola to name three. Instead these are OEMs that play in Africa, India, Indonesia, Latin America and the Middle East. Markets where BBM dominates which means that BlackBerry is trying to defend the hold it has on instant messaging in those markets. I would have liked to see a big name Android OEM step up to the table. Perhaps that’s coming. That will be big news when it happens. Still, this is a development worth noting.
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This entry was posted on November 26, 2013 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags BlackBerry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.