Samsung Launches BBM Rival – ChatOn App Which Also Supports Blackberry

The group messaging service will be available across a variety of mobile devices and allow users to chat amongst themselves.
It’s not just Samsung smartphones and tablets that will be plugged into this messaging service: ChatON will be open to rival platforms, TNW reports.

They say users with an Android phone, an iOS device (iPhone) and even BlackBerry users can download the ChatON app to start yakking for free with other users.

BBM – BlackBerry Messenger – has been incredibly successful for Research in Motion. For many of my friends, it’s the only reason they have a BlackBerry in the first place.

If BBM can be so successful for RIM, Samsung might think a similar service will be equally successful for them.

Apple appears to be thinking the same way with the launch of its iMessage service – a feature we won’t see until the new version of its mobile operating system, iOS 5, is released in the next few weeks.

As opposed to normal text messaging, which never tells the sender if a message has been received, much less read, many new instant messaging services instantly update the sender with how the status of the message.

Users can also send files – including videos and pictures – to several users all at once.

Other services, such as Kik and What’s App, have tried to simulate the experience.

Samsung’s ChatON will be free – and it will be entering a fiercely competitive market. Between this new arrival, iMessage, GroupMe, What’s App and of course BBM, it will be a tight race.

The new service will be launching in October in 120 different countries.