Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung says its instant messaging service, ChatOn, is now available on Apple and BlackBerry devices. The application is already available for Samsung’s Bada operating system and for Google’s Android platform.

Samsung SA MD Deon Liebenberg says ChatOn is now available to consumers “irrespective of the mobile device or feature phone that they use at no cost”. Customers will still be required to pay for the data ChatOn uses to transmit and receive messages.

Much like the cross-platform messaging service WhatsApp, ChatOn allows users to share multimedia content such as images and videos, calendars and GPS coordinates, in addition to sharing text messages.

Opening ChatOn to non-Samsung devices is an interesting move from Samsung and one that it must hope will see the service picked up by non-Samsung users. In this sense it’s a compelling marketing exercise by the company and an attempt to gain market share from similar but proprietary services such as Apple’s iMessage and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry Messenger (better known as BBM). — Staff reporter, TechCentral