Among the many other announcements during today’s keynote, nothing stood out more loud and clear than finding out the future of the illustrious BlackBerry Messenger. Thorsten spoke about some very key stats on the social messaging app, including the fact more than 20 billion messages are sent out daily, and further, most messages are read within the first 20 seconds of being received. That’s some intense engagement for an app centered around communication.

The biggest update, however, and the one that got everyone excited was the announcement that BBM will finally go cross-platform and be available as a free download for both iOS 6 (and higher) and Android (4.0 and higher). Huge news. BBM was at one point the only app that kept users’ on the once fledging OS.

At first, BBM for Android and iOS will launch as a scaled down version of the BlackBerry iteration, featuring only back and forth messaging as well as groups. However, Thorsten did say that voice and video calls would roll-out as well for future updates.

Huge news and there is still plenty more to come! What do you think? Are you excited for BBM on Android or iOS? Sound off below.

More developing from the floor of BlackBerry Live 2013

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