BlackBerry Messenger Service will be officially closing down on May 31, 2019, the app’s overseers CMW and Emtek have announced.
“The technology industry however, is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on,” reads a blogpost on BBM website.
“Though we are sad to say goodbye, the time has come to sunset the BBM consumer service, and for us to move on, we are grateful for your support and wish to thank everyone, especially our users, partners, and employees, for being part of the BBM consumer service journey,” the post added.
BBM was once one of the largest mobile messaging applications. Moving beyond BlackBerry devices, the app had over 100 million installs on Android, iOS, and Windows.
On 27 June 2016, Creative Media Works, a division of PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi Tbk. (Emtek)- one of Indonesia’s largest media, content and technology businesses – announced a long-term strategic alliance with BlackBerry Limited to accelerate consumer BBM’s research and development in offering new and exciting features, services and content to the global consumer market but now CMW has decided to shut it down.
What happens to your data stored in the BBM servers?
CMW does not store your messages (chat) or asset files as they are stored in the BBM application on your device. Messages and asset files such as photos, documents and videos are only stored on the BBM servers until they are downloaded by users. If not downloaded within 7 days, these messages and asset files are then deleted.
Once the BBM service is shut down, you will not be able to open BBM on your device to see any old or new messages, or retrieve asset files.
Once the BBM service is shut down, we will be deleting other data such as channels and feeds which is stored on our BBM servers within 7 days of the service shutting down, other than data we are required to keep for legal reasons. However, the process to delete data from our Cloud infrastructure will take up to 180 days.
