BlackBerry’s BBM success shouldn’t leave its devices behind

A few months back, while sitting on the subway in Toronto, I heard something I’ve never heard before: a group of teenagers talking enthusiastically about BlackBerry.

To be specific, they were discussing BBM, the chat service that has gained an estimated 20 million new users in the past week. “I like it because you can see if someone’s gotten your message,” one teenage girl said.

“Yeah, but it only works on BlackBerry,” her friend countered.

“No, it’s coming to Android and iOS soon,” said a lanky boy standing next to them. There were murmurs of approval all around.

The success of BlackBerry’s decision to make BBM cross-platform has added an unusually positive note amid the company’s uncertain future and its quest for a buyer. While expanding the customer base of BBM is undoubtedly a good sign, though, it’s unclear what it will mean for the company’s bottom line.

One possibility is BBM Channels, a forthcoming extension of the service which would allow people to not only communicate peer-to-peer but to attract “followers” and follow brands and companies. No one at BlackBerry has really spelled this out, but it’s reasonable to expect that if BBM becomes more of a social media offering like Twitter or Tumblr, advertising could be integrated into the experience with sponsored posts and the like.

The challenge is that BBM has since been outpaced by WhatApp (which has some 350 million users), SnapChat and Line, among others. The deluge of BBM downloads may be a combination of nostalgia from old users and curiosity from new ones. This could be sustained in the short term as BlackBerry makes voice and video calling features in BBM cross-platform as well, but eventually the company will have to further differentiate itself.

Of course, BlackBerry does have one thing the other chat services don’t: proprietary devices. In theory, this should be a strategic advantage, even though recent sales figures suggest it’s more of a liability.

When I heard the story that BlackBerry reportedly approached Facebook about a possible acquisition, I was reminded of the ongoing speculation that we would eventually see a “Facebook phone.” We got Facebook Home on Android instead, and there’s still no company that has managed to create a great social service and a great smartphone for which it’s ideally optimized. This is the kind of mission a firm committed to remaining a market leader should have the ambition to take on.

If BlackBerry wasn’t trying to find a suitor, I’d suggest it take some of that cash it has in the bank and make an acquisition to catch up with the other chat services more quickly. (It could look practically next door at Kik Interactive, which has some 90 million users). Then I’d suggest it retool the Z10 and Q10 and do something to demonstrate those devices are the ideal home for a BBM experience.

All this is admittedly difficult to do when you’re continuing to slash staff, as BlackBerry is doing. However treating the interest in BBM as a possible opportunity to spin off the service or reinvent BlackBerry as a social media company would be premature at best. Instead, BlackBerry should be treating BBM as a way of re-introducing itself to a market that may have forgotten its technological prowess, and following it up with hardware to match. BlackBerry is much more than another chat startup. Until a buyer comes along, it should make sure we all remember that.