R

emember when your question was left unanswered by your BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) contacts in times of emergency? You might try to “Ping” them to garner immediate attention.

Ironically, it is the maker of the once-popular messaging service that has been forced to use the stress button to look for help amid the global sales decline of its BlackBerry handsets.

Being squeezed by competition with giant messaging apps like WhatsApp and WeChat, Blackberry Ltd. sees a potential lifeline coming from Indonesian media company PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi (Emtek), which recently announced its partnership with the Canadian technology company to bring its video content onto BBM and further develop the messaging app.

According to a statement by Emtek, the partnership will integrate their music, video and online media streaming content with BBM, as well as try to develop access for users to plan new features such as online shopping, e-payment and online-to-offline services related to job searches, travel and ticket reservations.

By taking this trajectory in its development, Emtek plans to revamp BBM in a way that it becomes an all-purpose messaging app.

Emtek CEO Alvin Sariaatmadja said BlackBerry’s myriad of software licenses and intellectual property makes the company the right partner to boost growth in both companies and achieve BBM’s operational efficiency.

“Our partnership with BlackBerry enables all BBM users to be able to access exclusive content that Emtek has already provided. We see the deal as a huge opportunity to develop BBM’s global business and we’re excited to invest further in its research and development,” Alvin said in a statement released on Monday.

BlackBerry once dominated the handset and communications landscape in the late 2000s in Indonesia, home to over 250 million people, with the BBM service then becoming synonymous with the idea of mobile messaging way before other brands began to take over the landscape.

In its heyday, the service was exclusively featured on BlackBerry handsets, forcing would-be users to purchase their handsets thereby increasing sales for the gadgets. But now, the BBM software can also run on Android and iOS.

Data from statistics portal Statista showed that WhatsApp was the world’s most popular mobile messenger app by April this year with 1 billion users, 10 times higher than the number of BBM users.

Another report from US-based research firm Gartner revealed that only around 650,000 units of Blackberry handsets were sold in the first quarter of 2016, far below the sales of gadgets run by Android operating systems, which notched up sales of over 290 million units.

To underline the seriousness of its partnership with BlackBerry, Emtek will reportedly construct a new office building in Toronto, where up to 80 to 100 BlackBerry employees will be transferred to work on the deal.

James Mackey, BlackBerry’s head of corporate development, said its cooperation with Emtek would help it achieve operational and cost efficiencies as Indonesia was also home to around 60 million active BBM users out of its 90 million worldwide user base.

He, however, refused to reveal how much Emtek, the owner of national TV stations SCTV and Indosiar, had invested for the partnership.

“We remain committed to investing in and growing the BBM business and this partnership was the ideal opportunity to do that on a global scale,” he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday via email.

Requests for comments to a number of Emtek executives have also left unanswered. For its loyal users, BBM still offers a service with a reliable interface. Its usability is sometimes seen as more straightforward than other messaging apps.

“I use BBM mostly with my business clients, who seem to be reluctant to transition to other services,” said 55-year-old Ingi Kisyanto, the director of a Jakarta-based medical services company.

“It’s a matter of comfort, not really a matter of technology.”