Blackberry Messenger (BBM) is shutting down May 31st

BlackBerry Thursday announced that it will be shutting down its BBM consumer service on 31 May 2019.

According to Blackberry, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on to BBM.

“We are proud of what we have built to date … The technology industry however, is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on,” the company wrote in a blog. “Though we are sad to say goodbye, the time has come to sunset the BBM consumer service, and for us to move on.”

Those using the enterprise version of the app, called BBMe, will continue operations as normal. If you really miss BBM and want to keep using it, you can also download the enterprise version on Android and iOS for free, but there is a $2.50 subscription fee for every six months.

BBMe does offer end-to-end encryption and message editing / unsending where the consumer version didn’t, so it may be worth the dollars if you’re still an avid BBM believer.

BBM was very popular in the early 2000s. But the coming of WhatsApp and other instant messaging applications such as Telegram, WeChat and Facebook Messanger saw its popularity fade out.

Blackberry said users’ data such as photos, videos and files will be available for download before the app is shut down at the end of May.

.Once the BBM service is shut down, you will not be able to open BBM on your device to see any old or new messages, or retrieve asset files.

(source)