A few days ago, BlackBerry proudly announced the availability of their BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service to Android and iOS users. It wasn’t all that smooth-sailing for the company though.
While there was no hitch on the rollout for the App Store, leaked and unofficial versions of BBM made its way to Google Play prompting BlackBerry to postpone the rollout for Android users. These versions resulted in volumes of data traffic orders of magnitude higher than normal for each active user and impacted their server in abnormal ways.
BlackBerry already had the fixed version for Android ready to go live on Saturday but had to pull back as they weren’t still able to block users who had the unofficial version installed. Active users of the said version neared a million and continues to grow, and BlackBerry needs more time to adjust their system to completely block the unreleased version of the Android app.
Their only course at the moment is to pause the rollout for both Android and iPhone. iPhone users who already have BBM installed will still be able to use it.
If you wish to receive updates on BBM for Android and iOS, visit InsideBlackBerry.com or follow @BBM on Twitter. Notifications will also be sent to those who registered on BBM.com.
