[sami36]

What BBM could & should have been if those geniuses at the helm RIMM had any foresight. Apple made an iTunes version for Windows, Microsoft made Office for Mac. if those two could work past their differences for the sake of serving their customers, anyone can.

Early on, when iMessage was a pipe-dream &Gtalk a usability mess victim of Google's "everything must be web" orthodoxy, RIMM could have made a killing selling a robust no-frills honest-to-God messaging app for Android, iOS, Windows Phone & feature phones.What a waste.

[Samuel_Michon]

"Apple made an iTunes version for Windows, Microsoft made Office for Mac. if those two could work past their differences for the sake of serving their customers, anyone can."

I understand what you're trying to say, but MS Office was first released for Mac (1989), then for Windows (1990). MS Word was released for Mac in 1984, later for Windows (1989).

Even before the Mac was released, Microsoft made products for Apple, like Applesoft BASIC and the Microsoft SoftCard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_office#Version_histor...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word#Origins_and_grow...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applesoft_BASIC

http://apple2info.net/index.php?title=Microsoft_SoftCard

[xoail]

A close friend of mine from RIM told me they came pretty close to doing it. But dropped the idea due to certain limitations/challenges 70% in.

[sami36]

Sounds plausible.They couldn't get email to work on the playbook when it was first released. I still have a hard time wrapping my head about how rigid an architecture must be to tie email to a specific device but it seems to be the way they've designed their systems.

[jrmg]

Do you thing that there would be enough of a revenue stream from cross-platform BBM that it could sustain RIM?