SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Instant messaging will become a more prominent feature on Blackberrys under separate agreements by Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the popular wireless e-mail devices, with both America Online Inc. and Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news)
The software for AOL Instant Messenger, AOL's ICQ service and Yahoo Instant Messenger will be pre-installed on new Blackberrys in the coming months, the companies said Monday.
Canada-based Research In Motion also plans to allow owners of existing Blackberry models to download those applications to install on their devices.
Instant messaging has been possible on one Blackberry model by using software downloaded from third parties, but this will mark the first time that Research In Motion has installed the applications on its devices.
With more than 2 million of the devices currently in usage, Blackberrys have become one of the most common ways to stay connected to e-mail and the rest of the Internet while away from a desktop or laptop computer.
Increasingly, many Blackberrys are equipped with cell phones as well.
The deals aren't exclusive, leaving the door open for rival services such as Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Messenger to negotiate similar deals with Research In Motion
It's great! It will introduce people to basic IM on BlackBerry, and be a stepping stone to superior IM software too;
I think it won't hurt PDAapps in the long term -- and actually help them, because sometimes people may be looking for superior alternatives.
"Dangit, why can't I just hit Enter to send IM's"
"Why can't I be logged onto both AIM and Yahoo simultaneously?"
"MSN is missing!"
"Notifications are not as configurable as I want them to be!"
"I want to multitask 2 conversations simultaneously at one hotkey!"
etc.
Verichat solves all the above problems, for example...
(I am comparing to the instant messaging client installed on 7100t's)
Verichat is still superior to the instant messaging built into BlackBerry 7100's, so I wouldn't worry about it...
This is probably just going to be basic IM over SMS, time will tell if this is really something...
Blackberry to Expand Instant Messaging
two days ago...
