I think this a big mistake by rim. It's one of the few reasons that users are still on their platform. They also just gave all of their users that won't leave for bbm a reason. Also, from the wording in the article it seems that it will be vastly crippled (messaging only), cost money, and won't be out for many months.

Full disclosure: launching a mobile messaging app called freespeech at SXSW.