Did you own a BlackBerry? If you did, you'll surly remember its messaging app: BBM!
Makers of BBM - BlackBerry Messenger - have confirmed the service is shutting down on Friday 31st May 2019, both in a blog post on their website and on BBM's official Twitter account: @BBM.
"Today we’re announcing that we will be closing BBM consumer service on 31 May 2019. Thank you for being part of the BBM consumer service experience!"
A third party company called Emtek, have been in charge of and have been running the BlackBerry Messenger app since 2016 and have announced it is ending support for the consumer version of the app.
BBM was first launched way back on BlackBerry smartphones when they were a 'thing'. Lots of businesses used BlackBerry phones and thus, the BBM application as it is a safe and secure way of sending messages and getting replies.
BlackBerry Messenger is also available for free on iOS and Android devices too and can be downloaded and installed on the App Store and from the Google Play Store.
Don't panic, though. If you still live and breath BBM, there is an enterprise version that will still be available and supported, named 'BBMe' (BlackBerry Messenger Enterprise).
Although the enterprise version of the application is free to download on iOS and Android, there is a fee of $2.50 for every six months you continue to use the platform. It's secure too. Just like rival service, WhatsApp, BBMe offers end-to-end encryption. The original version of BBM did not support this feature.
Check out all of the FAQs on BBM's website, here.
PING!
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