(Credit: CBSi)

Do you have a group of friends that use BlackBerrys and conduct secret, but obviously hilarious, BBM conversations behind your back? Wish you could be in on the joke and still keep your HTC Desire HD?

According to those ever-mysterious "sources", the Boy Genius Report has come across information indicating that BlackBerry makers Research In Motion (RIM) may be gearing up to launch a cross-platform version of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for Android first, with Apple's iOS platform following sometime thereafter. Though this would mean sharing one of the few exclusive and popular functionalities of the BlackBerry brand, it could be an excellent way to keep BlackBerry in the front of users' minds even as they play with their iPhone.

This rumour follows on from another interesting piece of BlackBerry cross-platform speculation, with several sites suggesting that RIM could be developing an Android emulator of sorts for running Android applications as though they were native applications of its new QNX-based tablet platform — the same OS we expect to see in BlackBerry smartphones sooner rather than later. This would give BlackBerry users an extra 150,000 tools and games on top of the apps already available on the BlackBerry App World.

Via www.bgr.com