Facebook’s stunning $16 billion purchase of WhatsApp is both good news and bad news for BlackBerry. On the good news side, it means that the company’s popular BlackBerry Messenger service suddenly looks a lot more valuable than what many people had once thought — this explains why BlackBerry shares are trading significantly higher on the day after the Facebook-WhatsApp announcement. On the other hand, WhatsApp’s smashing success is a reminder of what could have been for the Canadian smartphone pioneer.-Kevin Michaluk-of CrackBerry fame writes that he and many other loyal BlackBerry fans had tried pushing the company to make BBM a cross-platform service years ago but BlackBerry execs at the time apparently weren’t receptive to the idea. “We were extremely

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