Blackberry said it would initially offer texts, photo messages and group sharing functions on devices running Google's Android and Apple's iOS operating systems from "the summer".
It added it planned to roll out screen sharing, voice and video calls - all without charge - later in the year.
The move could prove disruptive to Skype, Whatsapp and other rivals.
Blackberry chief executive Thorsten Heins revealed the surprise news at the end of his presentation at the firm's annual developers conference in Orlando, Florida.
The company said that more than 60 million Blackberry owners already used BBM at least once a month.
But Mr Heins played down the idea that offering the feature to rival devices would harm sales of the Canadian company's own handsets.
"You might ask the question why is Blackberry doing this now," said Mr Heins.
"It's a statement of confidence. The Blackberry 10 platform is so strong and the response has been so good that we are confident the time is right for Blackberry Messenger to become an independent multiplatform messaging solution."
He added that for the app to work iPhone users would need at least iOS 6 and Android users the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Google's software. There was no mention of Windows Phone.
Good initiative
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