Canadian handset manufacturer BlackBerry is to make a host of features, including BBM Voice and BBM Channels, available on rival iPhone and Android platforms.
The company had earlier opened up its popular BlackBerry Messenger (chat) services on other platforms.
“There is a continuing focus on security and privacy, and yet opening it up for a wider user base,” said Krishnadeep Baruah, Senior Director, Channel Marketing Asia Pacific at BlackBerry.
BBM Voice is a service much similar to BlackBerry Messenger, wherein users can make real-time voice calls to anywhere in the world without additional charges. Similar to BBM services, this would not incur additional charges.
BBM Channels is a social platform enabling users to form a group and interact with each other. “This can be also done on a corporate front, or individual front,” Baruah added.
These are made available under BlackBerry’s BBM 2.0 initiative. The company is yet to announce a date for launching these services on other platforms. BlackBerry had opened up BBM to other platforms in October 2013 and had garnered 10 million downloads in the first day itself. By 2013-end, there were about 40 million BBM users on Android and iPhone platforms.
“Globally, we found that people who had moved away from BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) are coming back to BBM,” he added.
BlackBerry is also making features such as voice notes, Dropbox (a file hosting service), services, location services, sharing pictures available on BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, Android and iOS soon.