After a failed attempt at bringing the BlackBerry Messenger App to run multi-platform by adding the iPhone and Android phones to the list of phones that could use the BBM service, BBM for iPhone and Android will not launch this week. The troubled corporate giants at RIM have agreed to a $4.7 billion sell out in a preliminary deal to Fairfax.

According to Wikipedia, Fairfax Media Limited is one of Australia’s largest diversified media companies. The group’s operations include newspapers, magazines, radio and digital media operating in Australia and New Zealand. Fairfax Media was founded by the Fairfax family as John Fairfax and Sons, later to become John Fairfax Holdings. The Fairfax family lost control of the company in December 1990. It was renamed from John Fairfax Holdings to Fairfax Media in 2007.

Having been heavily on the spotlights since last week, and after announcing their decision last week to lay off 40% of their employees globally, The struggling Canadian smartphone maker has signed a letter of intent agreement (LOI) with Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited which has offered to acquire the company subject to due diligence, it said in a statement.

The Fate of BBM for Anroid and iPhone

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BBM was scheduled to be available for Android smart phones running Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean beginning at 4.30pm on September 21. BBM for iPhones running iOS 6 and iOS 7 was to simultaneously become available for each market on the App Store schedule of 12:01am local time on September 22.

A lot of fake apps were already on Google Play Store fooling thousands of consumers. One such app was called ‘Blackberry Messenger BBM” and was downloaded by over 100,000 users until it was removed from the store. However, the official BBM app was only made available in New Zealand, India, Australia and UAE for iPhone customers. Global roll out was slowly but steadily ongoing. The official Android version was to show up here when it would release in India.

However, due to a leak of the unreleased version of BBM on the Android market, the roll out was stalled and BBM is not launching this week. It is stll suspended and no confirmation of commencement has been given.

Initially, when Blackberry made the announcement of making BBM available to all, a lot of users and non-users reacted to the big move with mixed opinions.

BBM has more than 60 million monthly active customers on BlackBerry alone and this figure is expected to multiply with the popular messaging app becoming available on the two most popular mobile platforms.

Sunil Lalvani, the company’s India managing director, spoke on how BBM will be more secure than any other instant messenger tools and how this will help the company on its way forward.

Another way to keep yourself updated and get the official link is here.

Latest:

* A statement issued by head of BBM at Blackberry Andrew Bocking confirms that BBM will not be launching this week. “The team is now focused on adjusting the system to completely block this unreleased version of the Android app when we go live with the official BBM for Android app. We are also making sure that the system is reinforced to handle this kind of scenario in the future. While this may sound like a simple task – it’s not. This will take some time and I do not anticipate launching this week,” said Andrew in his statement.

He also reasoned on the stall. “We attempted to address the problems caused by the unreleased version throughout the day on Saturday, but as active users of the unreleased app neared a million – and accelerated – it became clear that the only way to address the issue was to pause the rollout for both Android and iPhone.”

Read his full statement here.

* The company said in a statement that it has “signed a letter of intent agreement under which a consortium to be led by Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited has offered to acquire the company subject to due diligence.”

* In another statement the company announced that Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings has agreed to acquire BlackBerry in a deal worth $4.7 billion. The deal is not a cemented one and Fairfax can walk away from it any time they want. Fairfax currently owns approximately 10% of Blackberry common shares. A firm deal is expected to be announced on November 4. This news raises a lot of questions to the stagnated BBM roll out. Looks like BBM will take the back seat for a while now.

* The weekend has been very long for Blackberry. With delays and an eventual stall in the roll out of the much awaited BBM on Android and Apple, Blackberry is facing the heat. Lately, nothing seems to be going their way. Last week they made an announcement about laying off 40% of their employees globally. They also reported losses of nearly $1 billion in the three months to August. The weekend didn’t seem to do any favours either. With no announcement of when and if the roll out will commence and the official finance reports due to be released this Friday, Blackberry sure has rough days ahead.

* Blackberry made another announcement moments ago stating that the team is working non-stop. No updates on the commencement of roll out was mentioned. All one can do is wait.

* According to the latest reports, BBM has discontinued all roll out operations even for iPhone users. Unexpected issues with respect to the unreleased BBM for Android was stated as the reason to stall the roll out. Blackberry’s official blog confirms that an unreleased version of the app for BBM was posted online. The app caused issues due to which the roll out had to be abandoned to address the issue. Blackberry asserts that their team is working round the clock to fix it. They also confirmed that the roll out will be staggered.

* BBM for iPhone is now available on the App Store for UAE.

* Indian iPhone users get BBM at the stipulated time. Android users still stay disappointed.

* Quitely slamming the fake apps and confirming that the wait is not over yet. Check out our previous posts on BBM for Android DOWNLOAD and BBM for iPhone DOWNLOAD

At Loadedvilla we think BlackBerry and its cohorts ought to wake up since other instant messengers far better than the BBM service and by far cross-platform exists. Take for instance Whatsapp having as less than a thousand employees (including its CEO), have stamped their marks easily on the instant messaging world! We promise to bring you instant news and development as things progress. Visit us regularly for more updates.

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