Blackberry Offers Free Apps:
In an earlier article we wrote about RIM/Blackberry’s failings in keeping it’s customers happy with the ongoing issues around lack of service. We then touched upon what they would do to compensate their loyal customers in the aftermath, would it be a lump sum, offers, discounts, a free holiday to the moon?
But no, in a rather tight and misery decision, they have decided everyone wants free applications. A much easier to deliver, almost no cost solution to looking like you give a s*** from a company who have now started to firmly dig a nice wide hole to lay in.
Good offerings?
Well if you were in the market for apps, I suppose that having access to over $100 of premium applications such as games, hands-free apps, and other mobile tools would come as a nice gesture, but what if you do not want them, or have already bought what you need?
The offer will last for the remainder of 2011 for current blackberry users, and will come as a welcome relief to Blackberry developers who are probably going to keep this nice bit of extra cash for the transition to Apple or Android where things may feel a little more stable in light of the last years news on finances and the future of RIM in general.
Cause of issue:
Basically RIM’s network failed on pretty much all continents, Middle East, Western Asia, Africa, Europe and North and South America.
The problem was apparently a “switch” used at a Slough data facility in the UK that had the first issues, this allowed among other things a huge backlog of emails to back up on the servers and eventually cause the knock on effect that brought down the system globally for around three days.
RIM’s Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis (yes there is two of them) said:
“We are grateful to our loyal Blackberry customers for their patience. We have apologized to our customers and we will work tirelessly to restore their confidence. We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.”
RIM/Blackberry preferred by businesses due to extra security?
RIM still claim that they have a better system overall when it comes to security, the fact that governments and big business still (did) prefer their phones is the only saving grace for a manufacturer who now has huge competition in the marketplace bringing out more advanced phones and operating systems by the month.
With a massive question over reliability over there heads, something that big business and government will not accept in any way when it means lost business and wasted time, how long can RIM last when so many will be looking to move providers on upgrade if not well before?
Professor Ian Lee from Sprott School of Business at Carleton University, warned that business users could flee Blackberry if they are seen as unreliable:
“These meltdowns are just the worst thing you can do in the corporate world because businessmen expect reliability. They don’t want excuses. Their competitive strength has been in the corporate market, or enterprise market, and such outages are causing these customers to take a second look at competitors.”
Two heads better than one?
Yes, times look tough for the folks at RIM, it will be interesting to see if two heads do prove better than one at the top, or a leaner more focused approach to leadership is more beneficial…now I wonder who they could have learned from in those stakes?
Anthony Munns