WeChat Develops App for Latest Blackberry

5
Mar
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Is Tencent the eternally benevolent company? After becoming a pioneer of crowd funding in China, the founders of Wechat have decided to develop their services for users of the latests Blackberry handset. 

 
Most people know that these days, the Blackberry brand has not been doing too well. Indeed, many popular apps and services today have stopped developing their products for Blackberry. They assume the company's time is over as everyone slowly migrates over to iPhone, Samsung and all the other hip phones. 
 

Blackberry's fight for survival

 
At this point in time, we don't know whether Wechat was paid by RIM to develop the app, whether Wechat was feeling benevolent or if they genuinely believe they can gain from the Blackberry market.  There is little speculation really, I'd say Wechat is no doubt gaining from this move. 
 
If this news had appeared 6 months ago. People would have scoffed in the face of Wechat. Developing an app for Blackberry would simply have been perceived as a waste of time and money. The company was on the way out, worse than Nokia. 
 

A glimmer of hope? 

 
What we are witnessing is a shift in the trends. Ok - if not yet a trend at least an effort to create one. Blackberry's newest brand spanking phone: the BB 10 will has a Wechat app to go with it, hopefully making it a more attractive buy for the 300 million plus Wechat users.
 
Obviously, for Blackberry's new handset to become popular and save the company from almost certain bankruptcy, it will require more than simply a Wechat app. However, the faith that Tencent is placing in the latest device shows some hope for Blackberry. 
 
This form of endorsement from a popular and successful company can do wonders to promote a product. 
 
There is therefore a chance that this could help RIM more than it cares to acknowledge. 
Submitted by allie on Tue, 03/05/2013 - 16:05