Further woes for the Crackberry addict

Sonya Khanna

Business Editor

Cue the violins and sit back and watch as angry BlackBerry users flood social media outlets with bitter rants of hatred for Research In Motion.

It seems BlackBerry users just can’t catch a break given the recent outage, ousting millions of users from BBM, email and texting services and hindering their basic means of digital communication.

Wednesday marked the third day of the smartphone outage, leaving BlackBerry users in a dismal rut – yet again.

“Times like this make me reconsider whether I should toss my phone in for something better and more reliable,” says McMaster grad and BlackBerry user Alia Durbarry. “I keep thinking things like this won’t happen again. It’s just really frustrating when you can’t even do something so simple as text.”

A media release by RIM conveys “sincere apologies” to users affected by the current BlackBerry service issues.

Service issues initially surfaced in Europe, Middle East and African regions, impacting customers and prompting swift action by the company. According to a statement released by Research In Motion, the technical difficulties were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure.

“Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible.”

Frustration amid BlackBerry users has resurrected the never-ending “beef” between iPhone and Blackberry users, prompting one BlackBerry user to half jokingly state the desire to “join the dark side” and purchase an iPhone.

“BlackBerry subscribers in the Americas may be experiencing intermittent service delays this morning. We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we apologize to our customers for any inconvenience. We will provide a further update as soon as more information is available,” the company said.

“We know that many of you are still experiencing service problems. The resolution of this service issue is our Number One priority right now and we are working night and day to restore all BlackBerry services to normal levels. We will continue to keep this page updated.”

RIM has taken hit after disheartening hit it seems. The recent service issues follow a continuing shaky outlook for RIM due to plummeting shares spawning from low sales of its PlayBook tablet as well as plummeting shares.