BlackBerry to shut down BBM Music

BlackBerry (previously Research In Motion or RIM) will shut down BBM Music, a cloud-based social music sharing service launched in August 2011 to enable BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) users to exchange and share music with friends. The decision follows a 'strategic business review' of its offerings, the company has said.

BlackBerry has notified BBM Music subscribers via e-mail that the service will be stopped from June 2, 2013. Existing subscribers have been offered a free 30-day trial to its digital music service Rdio which was also launched in 2011. However, Rdio is not available in India.

The move is bound to disappoint BlackBerry users in India as companies like Sony, Nokia and Apple have recently come up with various music services. In March this year, Sony Music partnered  with the new range of Sony Xperia phones (Z, ZL and E series) to roll out Sony Music Jive, a service for downloading and streaming music. A similar service is already in the market from Nokia (Nokia Music Unlimited) that allows users to download and share free music from Nokia Music Store.

In December 2012, Apple also opened the gates of its iTunes Store for Indian users, featuring a selection of local and international music from all major labels and also offering thousands of independent labels.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)