BlackBerry said on Tuesday that it would open its BlackBerry Messenger service to users of iPhones and phones running the Android operating system while it also tries to turn the instant messaging system into a competitor of Twitter.
Thorsten Heins, BlackBerry’s president and chief executive, made the announcement at an annual marketing conference in Orlando, Fla., that offered relatively few new product announcements.
When carriers charged high fees for text messaging, BBM was a powerful selling tool for BlackBerry. Because it operates through BlackBerry’s own private network, BBM avoids fees from cellphone service providers and offers several technical advantages. But as the number of BlackBerry users in the United States fell drastically, the attractiveness and utility of a service that only connected BlackBerry phones also declined.
“Why is BlackBerry doing this now?” Mr. Heins asked at the meeting. “We are confident that the time is right for BlackBerry Messenger to become an independent, multiplatform service.”
Exactly what the expanded availability, which will begin on a limited basis this summer, will bring BlackBerry in business terms was unclear from the presentation. Mr. Heins said there would be no charge to download either the Apple iOS or Google Android apps.
Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research who was at the conference, said any financial gain would be indirect. BlackBerry, he said, appears to be hoping that people who find BBM useful on competitors’ phones will then consider changing brands.
The plan also appears intended to expand the audience for a new BlackBerry Messenger feature, BBM Channels, which Mr. Heins compared to Twitter during the company’s announcement.
In his presentation, Mr. Heins cast the feature as one that would be used mainly by corporations and public figures like musicians to create feeds of messages, although individuals would also be able to set up channels. BBM users, in turn, will be able to subscribe to those channels in much the same way they follow people and companies on Twitter.
Again, Mr. Heins offered no information about the potential financial impact of the new service, which became available in a prototype form on Tuesday.
Mr. Golvin said the BBM Channels service combined some features of both Twitter and Facebook, which corporations may find very attractive. The downside, he added, “is that its reach is teeny-tiny compared to Twitter.”
Given that BlackBerry has yet to start selling one of two previously announced phones based on the new BlackBerry 10 operating system in some important markets, including the United States, the lack of major announcements was not a surprise.
Mr. Heins did show off a new handset with a physical keyboard, the Q5, which resembles the Q10 phone that will go on sale in the United States next month. Unlike the Q10, which comes only in black or white, the Q5 will be available in a variety of colors, including pink.
But Mr. Heins said the Q5 was a lower-cost model that would be sold only in developing countries, which have become an increasingly important part of BlackBerry’s business.
The company also announced some additional features that would be available in an upgrade to the BlackBerry 10 operating system as well as in the software that information technology departments use to manage BlackBerrys and, now, iPhones and Android phones.
Over the past year, Mr. Heins has repeatedly said that BlackBerry hopes, with its new operating system, to take over a wide variety of computing tasks, including many now performed by desktops and laptops.
The BlackBerry subsidiary that developed the operating system, QNX Software Systems of Ottawa, has long been a supplier to automakers. So at last year’s conference, Mr. Heins showed off a Porsche convertible fitted with several BlackBerry PlayBook tablets to illustrate his plan.
This year, there was no mention of the PlayBook, which has been notably unsuccessful and sold at heavily discounted prices. But Mr. Heins had a new luxury car to display: a Bentley Continental convertible that was specially equipped with an unusually large touch screen.
The screen displayed a variety of car controls and information from a computer that Mr. Heins said used the BlackBerry 10 operating system.
Its display bore little resemblance to the user interface on BlackBerry 10 phones. But Mr. Heins and a QNX executive used it to make a BBM video call to another BlackBerry executive. Perhaps anticipating obvious concerns, Mr. Heins emphasized that the feature automatically switches to voice-only calling when the Bentley is in motion.
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