RIM CEO hints at future BBM video chat feature

During today's shareholder meeting RIM CEO Thorsten Heins hinted that BBM, the companies celebrated group messaging service, might be getting some significant upgrades with the debut of BB10. In particular, the words "video chat" were tossed out as an example of how it planned to keep pace with the evolving mobile landscape. In response to a shareholder question, Heins said:

"BBM is a very, strong platform... With upgrading it into a new experience, think about adding features on BB10 such as video chat, for example, within BBM. There's many other features to come with BB10 that will really level this BBM experience... which will upgrade that experience to a whole new social networking experience based on BBM... we want to use this to build a BlackBerry-driven social networking platform."

So, does that mean BlackBerry is getting ready to take on Skype and Google? Perhaps. It would certainly make sense, but we'd stop short calling it a sure shot. What is clear, is that Heins really wants to push BlackBerry as the "social" platform focused on "experience" and seems content to let those other mobile OSes win the apps race.

Filed under: Software

RIM CEO hints at future BBM video chat feature originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.