BlackBerry wants to see rivals' phones with BBM preinstalled While BlackBerry's latest handsets might not be selling as fast as some of the competition, the Canadian mobile maker is looking to expand its market presence further by having its messaging software come preinstalled on other vendors' phones, according to a report. In May, BlackBerry announced that it will open its popular …
What has this to do with Windows Phone?
Windows Phone is outselling Blackberry by 8:1 according to the latest Kantar figures for April (0.7% vs 5.6%) and WP is growing market share rapidly and Blackberry is shrinking rapidly.
So the only question in that regard would be does it mean then end of Blackberry will come even faster?
Yep, if they had let others manufacture the (sexy) hardware, whilst BB did the secure backend, then all the C-level execs would still be on the most secure messaging platform and loving their phones. It would have made BYOD a lot simpler to administer and support.
Some may hindsight is 20/20, but I'll wager a dollar I can find rants in El Reg forums going back over 3 or 4 years that address this.
I've been a BlackBerry user since 2009, when I bought my first (second hand) handset from eBay for £50. I bought it as something I could use to make calls, text, and manage my emails. I'm on my third handset now, after a very brief flirtation with Android (shite) and a longer term relationship with Windows Phone 7. In my opinion, Windows Phone offers an email system on a par with BlackBerry. It's easy enough to set up email on WP, and writing an email was an enjoyable experience. The only problem was that the screen was taken up by a keyboard, and this is where the BlackBerry wins and beats all devices really.
It's the keyboard that makes the phone, and it's the keyboard that means BlackBerry will have some sort of market presence in the years to come. I can't stand touch screen devices, while the keyboards have got better in recent times, they take up half the bloody screen so you can't see anything. So I wouldn't be surprised if BlackBerry/RIM know this, and know that they can afford to release BBM to other phone manufacturers.
My brother was a BB fan and tried both Android and Apple products but reverted back quite quickly, he even has one of the new models and I have to say it is pretty good. I am an Android person myself but last year I needed a phone for work so I thought I would buy a cheap BB to handle this. I was surprised how good it was and the syncing with Outlook, handling multiple email account etc. I don't think that offering BBM is a deal breaker, in someways I think if people see how integrated the features are and how easy it is to use they may just remember how good the other features where on the BB and now with a decent touch screen as well as the keyboard versions, with a lot more apps people may want to switch back.
Prrsonally, I'd rather not have anything pre-installed on a mobile except the bear essentials that are needed to make it a smart phone. I have an android that comes with a 2nd keyboard interface, a whole slew of games, an in built browser that can't even render HTML reliably, a contact list feature that loses account detail on reboot.. none of which can be uninstalled, and so reduce the 150mb system memory to about 32mb by the time I install the stuff I have to install to make it usable.
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