BBM Maker Leaves BlackBerry

Andrew Bocking, the man behind the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) software, left the company for an undisclosed reason.

Bocking started out as a project manager in BlackBerry Ltd. in 2000. He held several positions before becoming the company's executive vice president in 2013. He headed the creation of the popular messaging app and service BBM.

However, according to reports, which were confirmed by the company on Monday, Bocking resigned from his post and left the struggling company, raising questions about BBM's future.

"Andrew Bocking, EVP, BBM has made the decision to leave BlackBerry," said the company in an e-mail to TechCrunch. "We thank him for his years of leadership and contribution."

Without Bocking, the BBM division will be moved to the company's Global Enterprise Solutions and the team maintaining and enhancing BBM will now directly report to the its president John Sims.

"The BBM organization remains as a group within BlackBerry and will continue to focus on BlackBerry and BBM strength in messaging and new areas of strength such as mobile marketing, community-building and enterprise messaging," the company emailed the Financial Post. "John Sims, President, Global Enterprise Solutions, who has extensive experience in mobile messaging, will add the BBM team to his organization."

The transferring of BBM division to BlackBerry's enterprise division is another step taken by the company's chief executive officer John Chen to refocus the company on its main business users because he believes that his company's recovery is in the hands of its core business users. It is one of Chen's ways to save the company from further loss.

BBM is an Internet-based instant messenger application that initially allows exchange of messages between BlackBerry users only. But in 2013, the company eventually launched it on iOS and Android platforms, too, allowing users using different smartphones stay connected.

There were speculations that the company will be bringing the messenger to desktop in due course.