With the latest news of Saudi Arabia shutting down BIS service to their population, and the other countries threatening to cut off BIS access to devices in their respective countries, I found this little tidbit to be interesting. Tobias from Nimbuzz fired me an email this morning, letting me know that he has seen a massive increase in registrations for the free multi-platform instant messaging client. Over the past week, registrations have gone from a few hundred a week, to 8,000 on Wednesday and a whopping 35,000 new users yesterday alone! Users facing loss of their BBM capabilities are scrambling to find an alternative, and it seems that the number one solution for them is Nimbuzz.
The main thrust of the ban in this region is against the BlackBerry encryption methods, and Nimbuzz runs off a different format, allowing it to remain legal. With other countries in the region threatening the same type of action, it will be very interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks for this company. Rumor has it that UAE, Lebanon, Indonesia, India and China are considering the same measures, and registrations from users in those countries are mirroring that, beginning to climb steadily as their governments continue to move towards their goals.