by Emmanuel Chidiogo

 

The wait for Blackberry Messenger on Windows Phone is over, as Blackberry has released its once upon a time exclusive app for Windows platform.

The App which is now available in the Windows Phone store, but only exclusive to those who had signed-up for the beta version will be made availabe to all Windows Phone users from next week.

Blackberry commenced the beta for BBM earlier this month, testing the app with a limited number of users. Blackberry’s Mathew Talbot mentioned that 10,000 beta testers signed up during the first 24 hours.

“Next up is BBM for Windows Phone, coming next week. When we announced the private beta a few weeks ago, all 10,000 testing slots were taken within 24 hours. The excitement is there. The numbers are there. The momentum is there,” says Matthew Talbot, Senior VP of Emerging Solutions at Blackberry.

BlackBerry has found itself in an increasingly difficult position to the point where the company was forced to share its popular BBM platform with smartphone users outside the BlackBerry ecosystem. The company’s free voice and chatting platform was first made available on iOS and Android, but due to Windows Phone’s low-market share, it wasn’t a done deal if it would come to the platform.

The move to Android and iOS added 40 million users to the BBM ecosystem by the end of 2013. By becoming a part of the Windows Phone community, the BBM ecosystem should gain a few more millions.

At the moment, the BBM app for Windows Phone is experiencing several issues. For example, whenever the user goes out of Wi-Fi range, invites and acceptances are not sent. In addition, some emoticons fail to render properly, though we doubt many people would find this as troubling.

Furthermore, the Windows Phone version of the app doesn’t yet support voice calling, but for some reason the app shows that this feature is available.

As time goes by, we expect BlackBerry improve on the experience though it might depend on how many Windows Phone users have chosen to use the app.

Dear Windows Phone user, now that BBM is here, over to you!