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BBM For iPhone, Android Arrives

BBM For iPhone, Android Is Here
FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013,file photo, Thorsten Heins, CEO of Research in Motion, introduces the BlackBerry Z10, in New York. Research in Motion Ltd. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens on Friday, June 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
AP
FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013,file photo, Thorsten Heins, CEO of Research in Motion, introduces the BlackBerry Z10, in New York. Research in Motion Ltd. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens on Friday, June 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

BlackBerry users rejoice! The Waterloo, Ont. company released versions of its BlackBerry Messenger app for iOS and Android, the two dominant mobile platforms.

BlackBerry Messenger, known popularly as BBM, was once a killer feature for the smartphone and allowed for easy messaging between users and greater security.

Many users who switched to iPhone or Android phones lamented the fact that they no longer had access to BlackBerry users using BBM.

And BlackBerry is seeing strong demand for BBM.

"The demand for BBM on Android and BBM on iPhone continues to be amazing. About six million people signed up for information about BBM at BBM.com. As you know, in just seven hours, about one million Android users were using the unreleased version of BBM for Android. What you don’t know is that more than one million people have found creative ways to “side load” BBM on their iPhone. This is incredible," Andrew Bocking, the BlackBerry executive responsible for BBM, wrote on the company's blog.

To prevent taxing its servers, BlackBerry has created a wait list for new users wanting to download BBM.

It announced on Twitter that it already had 5 million downloads of the app. As of Tuesday morning, the app is also currently at the top of the iTunes store charts for free apps.

The warm reception for BlackBerry is a bit of good news for the technology company. It is currently in the middle of negotiating a sale to a consortium led by Fairfax.

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