BlackBerry has shut down one of its best enterprise features

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John Chen BlackBerry

Reuters

BlackBerry CEO John Chen.

BlackBerry is shutting down BBM Meetings on February 10th 2016, according to a blog post.

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BBM Meetings launched in late 2014 and offered an alternative to other enterprise-focused meeting software, such as Cisco's WebEx, that ran across BlackBerry, iOS, Android, Windows, and Windows Phones.

The killer feature of Meetings was the way it leveraged other BlackBerry services, such as the platform's security features, to make conference calling easier. Much of the information needed to set up a HD video or voice call was already present on a BlackBerry handset, cutting out many of the steps needed on rival services.

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The pricing - $12.50 (£8.37) a month per host for fewer than 25 participants - is far cheaper than rival systems.

BlackBerry gave no reason for shuttering the service, simply stating that it would be coming to a close next year. The company offered a way for customers to transition to Zoom Communications, a rival service that deals exclusively in web-based meetings.

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BlackBerry is moving to become a software company, after sales of its smartphones have fallen to under 1% of total shipments, according to analysts. The company is aiming for $500 million (£334 million) in software-related revenue by March 2016.

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