Blackberry at a big event in San Francisco this week unveiled BBM Meetings. The premise of this new platform is taking the BBM Video Voice Chat and allows 25 participants to join in on the call. There is screen sharing functionality in order to show off pictures or any other type of media. There are no PIN Numbers involved, you simply answer the call from the meeting organizer and you are good to go.
One of the more compelling factors about BBM Meetings is the cross-platform compatibility. There is official apps for the PC, MAC and Android, the iOS version is due out soon. BlackBerry is offering a 30-day free trial at $12.99 US and $13.75 for Canadians per host per month.
Blackberry is going to be competing against Gotomeeting and WebEX for corporate clients. Many small companies are using Google Hangouts for this sort of thing, but keep in mind, Hangouts only supports 10 users at a time.
Is BBM Meetings going to take off? Well, its hard to say when this program just launched. I know many companies who get me involved in calls for product releases or soft launches and they always go with the gold standard for meetings, WebEX. Its going to be a hard sell to try and get companies to make the switch, even though BBM Meetings is actually cheaper.
Download BBM Meetings today for Android from the Good e-Reader App Store.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.