If you remember having to send ‘BIS’ to ‘3200’ to subscribe to the BBM service on your Blackberry Bold, Curve or Javelin, then this news will mean something. The platform that introduced most of us to instant messaging is finally saying its goodbyes.

Blackberry Messenger first launched sometime in 2005 on Blackberry phones. However, it came to iOS and Android devices in October 2013. On the last day of May 2019, BBM as we know it will be shutting down permanently.

In 2016, Indonesia-based company Emtek took over the instant messaging app and redesigned it with modern features. They hoped this would revive it and make it more popular, enough to compete with the more modern apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Unfortunately, this did not happen. BBM was unable to get its number of users to go up.

In a statement, Emtek said,

“The technology industry, however, is very fluid. In spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on.”

 

A lot of people were unaware that the BBM service was actually still very active.

Experts think the new BBM upgrade failed because it had too much going on with games, channels and ads. But if for some reason, you are still a fan of the service, there is great news. Blackberry is now introducing a replacement. The BBMe is an enterprise based encrypted Messenger that is available for personal use.

BBMe is currently available on the Google Play Store for the Blackberry Key 2 Red Edition and other Android devices. There are also plans in place to bring it to Apple’s App Store soon. The application is free for the first year and will cost $2.49 (N896.40)for a 6-month subscription after.

There are speculations that even this enterprise version might not survive, especially as there is a payment plan to it. Consumers already have so many options with Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber, iMessage, IMO and in-app messaging on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The other options are free.