Gmail App for BlackBerry Set for Discontinuation on November 22

Bit by bit, RIM’s swan song of death continues. Today’s defeat comes from the developers at Google, who in a public blog post at Google Apps Updates announced the discontinuation of the Gmail App for BlackBerry starting on November 22.

That means the app will be removed from the BlackBerry App World on that date and there will be no new versions or updates in the future. Current BlackBerry users who have the app installed can continue to use it, but they should keep in mind that Google won’t supply any updates or fixes to functionality issues that develop when BlackBerry OS gets upgraded to BBX.

Google suggests future BlackBerry users run Gmail through the mobile browser on their BlackBerry device but most of the company’s 70 million worldwide users will likely opt to link their Gmail accounts to the native BlackBerry email app instead.

Though it may not be a worldwide service outage spanning 5 continents, Google’s termination of support for its own email app on RIM products is not a vote of confidence for the future of the mobile device company or its platform.

Via Google Apps Updates

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