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Comment by MichaelMug | Hacker News Reader

> In reading the article it is clear that at that the BlackBerry leadership decided that it was important for them strategically to address the rise of the iPhone.

It's my conclusion that RIM made a crucial misstep when it attempted to go head-to-head with the iPhone, as exemplified by the ill-fated Storm. Perhaps with the launch of the iPhone, RIM should of pivoted out of consumer electronics. My family is from Latin America. Circa 2007 BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) was all the rage. Carriers even offered specialized BBM phone plans. I recall seeing ads for plans with unlimited BBM's but low data and limited SMS. Fast forward to today, and WhatsApp has firmly taken the reins from BBM in Latin America. Looking back, I can't help but wonder if RIM had the potential to become the WhatsApp of today. Instead RIM locked BBM away in the confines of the enterprise world, guarded by their BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

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This is certainly possible, especially because they could have done it before iMessage too, and thus been able to gain mainstream traction even in the US. In 2008 when the App Store launched, SMS 'plans' were still an annoyingly expensive add-on here, and iMessage didn't exist. That was the window where anybody who really had a vision to do so could have become the WhatsApp AND the iMessage of today, all in one.

However, I'm really not sure how lucrative it would have really been to just control the messaging market. I'm assuming people wouldn't take kindly to a huge amount of ads to monetize it. Perhaps there could have been value in offering businesses a business-tier of account on the BBM network, kind of like Apple's Business Chat. On the other hand, I rarely see that feature actually being used today.

> In 2008 when the App Store launched, SMS 'plans' were still an annoyingly expensive add-on here, and iMessage didn't exist. That was the window where anybody who really had a vision to do so could have become the WhatsApp AND the iMessage of today, all in one.

That already existed at the time. I had a BlackBerry in 2008. I never heard of BBM and would have had no reason to send a message that way, but I installed AIM on the BlackBerry just fine.

Good point to mention that -- I agree BBM at the time was hobbled by the requirement to have a single brand of device. If your friends had all happened to have BlackBerries, I bet you'd have all used it.

However, you point out that "that already existed" as AIM. I'd argue AOL similarly missed the opportunity for AIM. They ought to have, the day the App Store launched, immediately started a massive branding campaign to revitalize AIM, probably introduced purely phone-number-based accounts, the way Telegram and Whatsapp do, removing the "username creativity" barrier to entry for new users.

Everyone in 2008 should have been immediately reminded: AIM is mobile now, it's completely free, shares media better than MMS, and works on every device with a data plan (BlackBerry, iPhone, Sidekick, Android, and ideally even those terrible flip phones with BREW apps).

Note: I'm aware AIM was in the App Store right away. Their primary failures were in not winning over hearts and minds to actually use it on Mobile. I liked AIM and used it on my iPhone back then, but most of my Buddy List wasn't usually even online, because they didn't think of AIM as a mobile tool, it was for using on their laptop.

That's a really great thought.

Their biggest benefit was the messaging... if they had that on the iPhone and Andriod in addition to their devices they may have survived. Certainly they would've had lots in subscription revenues.

They refused to have bbm on iphone and android so it was a big thing when they released it on the app and play stores in 2013. I remember they wanted to keep people locked into their phones to use bbm. But by then whatsapp started to take off so they had no choice.

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