Fans of BlackBerry will be pleased to learn that the company has today announced that not only is BBM Video calling on its way to both iOS and Android this July, but that those who live in the United States or Canada can get their hands on the feature right now, albeit in beta form.

Once a dominant force in the smartphone industry, BlackBerry has lost its way in recent years, and having fallen way behind the Apple iPhone in the pecking order, the Canadian outfit has called out its Cupertino rival in the battle of the IM services. Having opened BBM up to iOS, Android and Windows Phone recently, the company is now busy trying to sell the once-popular instant-messaging service to the masses, and as is the case with most tech companies nowadays, BlackBerry has gone on the offensive against its fierce rival’s corresponding iMessage.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform gets a pretty raw deal when it comes to apps, with developers favoring iOS and Android for the most part. The fact that Instagram only recently made its way to the Windows Phone Store is a testament to this, and with the BlackBerry Messenger app having dropped some time ago for Google and Apple’s mobile ecosystems, it has finally manifested itself for Windows Phone. As usual, we’ve got all of the details right here.

BlackBerry may well be scrambling for some sort of relevancy in the smartphone world, but it seems that some people just wont let their BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM accounts die. Announcing its first beta release of BBM for Windows Phone, BlackBerry took to its blog in order to claim that it had received an “incredible number of requests for BBM to come to Windows Phone.”

BlackBerry has just released a rather substantial update to the iOS and Android versions of its famed BBM app, bringing stickers, group photo sharing, and other such niceties. A full run-down of the enhancements, as well as the all-important download link to both the iOS and Android editions of BBM 2.1, can be seen below.

Having taken the wraps off the new Nokia X family, Stephen Elop also took the opportunity to announce that BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) would be headed to Windows Phone, along with Adobe Photoshop Express. The instant messaging service, which only arrived for iOS and Android a few months back after years as a BlackBerry-only feature, will be releasing a version for the Windows Phone Store in due course, although at this moment, it is unclear as to when exactly it will become available.

It took far too long in the eyes of many, but when BlackBerry first brought BBM to both Android and iOS, the app and associated service was met with a tepid response at best. While it’s true that BBM has, or at least had a core user base that was propping BlackBerry up despite its many failings, alternatives like WhatsApp left Android and iOS users wondering what all the fuss was about. It didn’t help that the apps weren’t great, either.

As most of you will have gleaned, BlackBerry is a struggling brand just now, and the decision of the Canadian company to roll its prized BBM out to Android and iOS was seen by many as a sign of its desperation. In October, we learned that BBM for Android and iPhone was would also, at some point, offer free voice calls to other users of the app, but despite the confirmation BlackBerry’s VP Andrew Bocking on its imminent arrival, it looks as though we won’t be getting the feature until early on next year.

BlackBerry’s OS and brand in general may be tanking right now, but the Canadian company seems determined to turn things around, and following the recent release of its prized BBM app for iOS and Android, it looks as though users of the latter ecosystem may begin to see the instant messaging app installed as standard on some future devices. If there’s one thing consumers tend to loathe, it’s the pre-installation of unnecessary bloatware that cannot be removed, but the good news – at least, for much of the western world – is that it’s unlikely to be finding its way to your favorite Android brand of handset any time soon.

BBM for iOS has just received an update over at the App Store, bringing with it support for the iPod touch and the Wi-Fi only iPad. More details as well as direct download link can be found right here.

If you’ve been patiently waiting for BlackBerry to give you access to its BBM service on iOS or Android then you’re in luck, because the Canadian firm has now opened its instant messaging system up to anyone, allowing existing users to invite their friends to join them on what was once the world’s up and coming instant messaging service.

The practice of paying for fake reviews, otherwise known as “astroturfing,” seems to be growing in prevalence in the digital industry, and on a day that has seen Samsung fined a hefty some for engaging in such behavior, it looks as though the ever-desperate BlackBerry has been doing some astroturfing of its own. The Google Play Store review page of the newly-released BlackBerry Messenger has been inundated with suspiciously similar looking reviews from a number of “consumers,” and although we already knew how much was at stake for BlackBerry with regards to the release of BBM, this move seems a little excessive.