Quote:
Originally Posted by OilKiller
Why would they do that? BBM is one of the things the BB has over the iPhone.
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Read my post - because they might just realize that the walled garden approach will fail once the mobile market place reaches a tipping point where iPhones and Android devices outnumber BB’s, and most communication between devices shifts to another messaging protocol. At that point, BB users will begin to feel increasingly isolated and are likely to look for alternatives, either on their BB’s, or by switching to alternate devices. Either way, the brand takes a value hit.
You could also build on the idea that BBM is a superior platform from a reliability and security standpoint, and sell the app to iPhone users as a valuable social/business tool. How many iPhone users would pay $4.99 for BBM? Probably quite a few. Beejive is $10, and is probably the most popular IM client on the phone right now. Multiple that by several million devices, and its not hard to see a revenue stream.
Ultimately, RIM should probably be focusing their value proposition on being the best, most reliable, and most secure messaging platform for the mobile space. Hardware is a losing game at this point, and its going to get much worse as cheap Android devices continue to proliferate.