Although the Waterloo, Ontario-based phone maker would surely deny it, BlackBerry officials appear close to pressing the panic button as the company continues to flounder.

To delay the inevitable jumping ship by BlackBerry subscribers and users, the firm published in 30 dailies, including The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post on Tuesday a letter, pleading with phone owners and customers not to abandon it, yet.

However, its move appears to confirm what techies have advised of the 5 Must Haves for BlackBerry Phone Owners in Preparation for Death of Canadian Phone Maker.

While assuring users that BlackBerry "is here to stay" and users could "continue to count" on the company, known for its security features, it is also preparing to roll out the BBM messaging software to iPhone and Android devices, which techies said would help BlackBerry users transition to other OS in the event that BlackBerry closes.

So far, there are 6 million pre-registered to be notified out the roll out of the BBM, but it is just a fraction of the 60 million instant messenger users in early 2013, although the recent news of financial problems caused the start of exodus among BlackBerry users.

While the company wrote off almost $1 billion due to a large stock of unsold units, the letter stressed that BlackBerry has about $2.6 billion cash, although it is down by about $500 million for the $3.1 billion during the fiscal first quarter. It emphasised the company has no long-term debt that would eat its cash reserve fast.

But it also admitted that because of restructuring, BlackBerry has to shed 4,500 jobs, although this development appears to be benefitting Apple which reportedly is poaching the soon-to-be laid off workers.

However, it assured there would no longer be any more cuts because "the company already she thousands of jobs, and doesn't have much left to cut in terms of human capital."

Despite BlackBerry's vaunted secure systems that make BlackBerry the choice of governments, global corporations and businesses not willing to compromise on security, many western governments have started to abandon BlackBerry in favour of rival iPhone.

"There are no doubt challenging times for us and we don't underestimate the situation or ignore the challenges ... We are making the difficult changes necessary to strengthen BlackBerry," the letter said.

BlackBerry Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben said the company decided to communicate directly with customers so there would be no intermediaries of distortion. "We communicate with our customers face to face through our direct sales force, but we cannot reach everyone within a company or administration. We thought this was a very good way to get out message across," Mr Boulben was quoted by Bloomberg.

BlackBerry has accepted a $4.7-billion acquisition offer from Fairfax Financial Holdings, its largest shareholder, but is still studying its option, including an offer from BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis.

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