Look, we all know that BlackBerry is in a tail spin and has been for a while. And at this point the situation can only become an incredible underdog story or a put the dog out of his misery moment. There’s no status quo anymore. But somehow the hole keeps being dug deeper. BlackBerry announced an abysmal early earnings report and major layoffs on Friday, and now there’s something else. BlackBerry was forced to release a statement yesterday saying that the new BBM apps for iOS and Android, which were supposed to be released yesterday and today respectively, are being delayed. And that’s just suboptimal.
With so much bad news, the new BBM apps were supposed to be something to get excited about. Or they were supposed to at least be a solid and uneventful release. But a leaked version of BBM for Android has brought the whole BBM weekend rollout to a grinding halt. BlackBerry said in a statement that:
The interest and enthusiasm we have seen already — more than 1.1 million active users in the first 8 hours without even launching the official Android app — is incredible. Consequently, this unreleased version caused issues, which we have attempted to address throughout the day.
This has been a big week. BlackBerry also announced an update to the Z10 handset, the Z30, on Thursday. But it’s hard to surmount that earnings news. Since they were announced, the concern about BBM for iOS and Android has always been that the apps wouldn’t be able to compete with other messaging apps that are better established on either or both platforms.
But BBM is solid and clearly it was leaked and downloaded 1.1 million times because people are interested in using it. BlackBerry teams “are working around the clock” to get it released, but the bigger issue is trust.
BlackBerry 10 was delayed a bunch of times before it came out and it seems like the unrest in the office is continuing to hinder the company from going about its daily business. Which makes sense, but is only making things worse.
We know you’re waiting. Pausing #BBM4All rollout to fix issues caused by unreleased BBM for Android app. Read more: http://t.co/rKCN4BNNXo
— BBM (@BBM) September 22, 2013