[budde]

I can't help but think that they should've done this 2 years ago. While it's true that this could have accelerated the exodus of users from BB to iOS/Android, I think a cross-platform, successful BBM would've been an invaluable beachhead in the mobile environment for RIM as their device marketshare plummeted. BBM could have then served as means of keeping users who gave up their BlackBerries in the BB ecosystem and helped to attract these users back to the BB platform when their latest, more modern devices were released.

At this point, at least among young people, I feel most former BBM users may have simply moved on and the prospect of using BBM on their new devices may just not be an interesting one anymore. Perhaps I'm wrong about this, though. Regardless, I think it's a good choice on RIM's part to launch a multiplatform BBM, I just feel like it would've been much more valuable to have done it a lot sooner.