BlackBerry is under intense pressure to give up its proprietary BlackBerry OS and fully accept Android as its saviour. This isn’t something that we have to say, instead, this is what BlackBerry has been told recently.
Popular apps like WhatsApp and Facebook have decided to cut off their services to the ailing platform, focusing on Android and iOS from now on. This development has raised further doubts about whether BlackBerry can continue to offer its enterprise-level OS for a long time to come.
Their indecision hasn’t been helped by the fact that the company went on to launch the Android-powered Priv after all these years. All this has led Facebook and WhatsApp to believe that Android might be BlackBerry’s second coming.
Recently, Facebook made the decision to discontinue support of their essential APIs for BlackBerry and WhatsApp announced they would end support for BlackBerry 10 and BBOS at the end of 2016. We are extremely disappointed in their decision as we know so many users love these apps. We fought back to work with WhatsApp and Facebook to change their minds, but at this time, their decision standsBlackBerry Blog
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WhatsApp formally announced that it will end its support to BlackBerry phones. The news barely came as a surprise to most people part of the tech sphere. When you consider that over 99.5 percent mobiles sold are running on Android or iOS, WhatsApp’s decision to cull BlackBerry makes sense to the money men.
The company stressed that this was a “tough decision” but the “right one” in order to give people better ways to keep in touch.
WhatsApp’s parent company, Facebook, has also confirmed that its BlackBerry OS app will not be getting crucial API updates by end of 2016. Somehow, Twitter has not felt the need to move away from the BB OS, but one can’t bet against that happening in the near future.
BlackBerry’s Got Nowhere to Go but Android
According to latest research figures, BlackBerry OS is branched under the ‘Others’ category of the operating system market. The gradual decline of BlackBerry OS across the globe is mostly blamed on the lacklustre response to the launch of BlackBerry phones in recent times.
Much like the Windows Phone OS, BlackBerry’s goal to establish a hardware-software nexus à la Apple has not given them results. Developers have backed out of supporting apps for the OS, and the ones who do are looking elsewhere nowadays.
With the BlackBerry Priv, the company has refined the Android ecosystem to offer enterprise-level security without letting in the third-party apps. Android is BlackBerry’s last chance saloon to awaken the dying giant and also offer Android BB phones at affordable price points to attract mass consumers. The enterprise-only focus isn’t going to work anymore.
Having said that, the Canada-based brand remains positive that WhatsApp and Facebook withdrawing support doesn’t mean the end of the world. But it’s hard to see how other application providers will convince themselves to prolong the BB OS journey in the foreseeable future.
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