BlackBerry Says BBM May Arrive on Asha Smartphones

BlackBerry has recently announced that its most treasured mass market service BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) will be available on Windows Phone devices. Moreover, the Canadian company has confirmed that BBM will also come on Nokia X smartphones, which will soon be available on the market.

In fact, Nokia X can already be purchased in select markets, while the other two handsets in the series, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL will go on sale in early Q2. You may be wondering why BlackBerry announced that its BBM application would be available on Nokia X family, given the fact that these smartphones are powered by Android operating system. Well, it appears that some Android applications need some tweaking before they can be installed on Nokia X devices. This is probably the reason BlackBerry and Nokia have been working together to make BBM available on the X family as well. But what if BBM were available on Asha smartphones as well? The question has recently received a partial answer from David Proulx, BlackBerry’s senior director of BBM.

When asked by the folks over at Nokia Conversation whether BlackBerry would be willing to bring its instant messaging service on Asha phone, Prolux said: “We want BBM to be as broadly available as possible so in this context, I wouldn’t rule anything out, especially considering the great partnership we have forged with Nokia this week.” This is not a confirmation that BBM will arrive on Asha phones, but rather an acceptance of the idea that anything is possible in such a competitive market. For the moment, the chances that BBM will be available on Asha phones mostly depend on the partnership between Nokia and BlackBerry. As long as the companies continue to team up on various endeavors and benefit from each other’s work, we don’t see why BBM on Asha would not be a viable project.

The only thing that might stand in the way is Nokia’s recent acquisition by Microsoft, which will probably have some influence on the former’s partnership with BlackBerry. However, we’re not sure whether this would have a positive or negative influence on the Nokia / BlackBerry current partnership. Given the fact that BlackBerry has already some experience in working with Microsoft, since they are bringing BBM on Windows Phone, we believe that Nokia’s partnership with the Canadian company won’t end abruptly the moment the acquisition process is complete. Asha users should expect more surprises from Nokia and BBM might be one of them. Watch this space for more details on the matter.

BBM logo
Image credits to BlackBerry

David Proulx, BlackBerry’s senior director of BBM
Image credits to Nokia Conversations

Posted in: Mobile Phone, News, Preview, Software