BlackBerry blackout deepens; RIM tries to weather the storm

Are you a Blackberry user? Not able to receive mail or use BB Messenger for almost four days now? Seems like you have to endure this blackout for some more time.

As RIM is stumbling to restore Blackberry services, we at OneIndia embarked to learn the situation prevailing on ground zero.

On enquiring with a Blackberry vendor, Aswath, on this situation, he said, "we are receiving a number of complaints from users since Monday. As of now we are not sure about the problem getting fixed any time soon. However, we are kept on loop about the latest developments."

Another BB dealer, Girish, virtually shared the same feeling over the ongoing disruption. "The service prominently goes down in the evening for four to five hours severely," he said

When asked to name any specific service provider affected by the BlackBerry blackout, he said almost all the operators are going through the service disruption.

Furthermore, he expressed that this could negatively impact BB sales in the future. Fall in sales is sure to be a nightmare for makers of BlackBerry and dealers. According to a latest report, over 17 million users have been affected across the world.

Initially, subscribers thought the service would be up within few hours but it dragged for straight four days.

Following a successive two-day 'data corruption', RIM came up with an explanation, “The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM"s infrastructure."

If BlackBerry continues to give the same service for some more time for its loyal users, then it could be running the risk of severe reputation damage in the global market, as other competitors may make the best out of former's shoddy service.

The unique selling point of BB is its ability to send and receive (push) e-mail wherever mobile network service coverage is present, or through Wi-Fi connectivity. They support a large array of instant messaging features, that has been disabled for four consecutive days.

However, the presence of mind of Blackberry makers need to be appreciated who made an effort to reach out its users via social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. At around 10 AM on Tuesday, RIM tweeted, “BlackBerry services have been restored". But after 12 PM, complaints began to flood in that the problems had returned.

The Blackberry fan page, on Tuesday posted, "We're aware many BlackBerry customers are experiencing intermittent service delays. Restoring full service is our number one priority. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience. We will provide a further update as soon as more information is available."

RIM have figured out a diplomatic way to deal with the fuming rather annoyed users as it keeps them on the loop, at the same time acknowledging the inconvenience caused due to the disruption in service.

OneIndia News