The company behind the Android platform for mobile devices, Google, has stated that it will halt its support for the Gmail application in smartphones from its rival BlackBerry phones manufactured by RIM. The application for the Web-based email service from Google will not be available any longer from the 22nd of November, and its support will also be stopped henceforth, said the company based in Mountain View, California. The company said that the users can keep using the application if it has already been downloaded.
RIM is currently struggling to find a way of stopping the decline in its smartphone market share as users are increasingly switching to devices based on the Android OS or Apple’s iPhone. The announcement regarding Gmail has come just a week after Google launched an identical app for iOS based devices, though it was pulled after it started giving error messages to users.
The Waterloo, Ontario based RIM’s share closed at a drop of 4.1% to reach a total of $18.05, the lowest price its stock has reached since 2004. The stock has already declined over 69% during this year. This move by Google comes as an inconvenience for BlackBerry smartphone users with accounts on Gmail who want access to those messaging services when they are not near a PC.
A well-known research firm said that the removal of the application is primarily a symbolic gesture, hence if the users want to access Gmail, they can still do it; but at a much greater inconvenience. The users will still be able to access their Gmail accounts on the phone’s web browser, or even through syncing their accounts with the BlackBerry service on their smartphones.
The statement from the company stated that it has stopped the development of the app for BlackBerry devices to concentrate more on the experience on the browser, without saying anything else. RIM responded with a message saying that the BlackBerry OS supports Gmail natively, so a separate dedicated application is not required for accessing messages on it. The native support means that users can sync emails form their Gmail accounts directly with their BlackBerry smartphones. The company added that the majority of Gmail users on its platform already rely on this feature to access their mail.
