A week after a core switch failure caused worldwide outages for Research in Motion's BlackBerry servers, the company is attempting to make amends: RIM announced today that it would be offering a dozen apps (worth roughly $100) to its customers free of charge, as well as a month of free technical support to its enterprise customers.

The outages, which affected RIM's browsing and messaging services among others, impacted customers worldwide, with most outages lasting between one and three days - the first service outage hit Europe, the Middle East, and Africa on October 10th, and services were restored on the 12th and the 13th. You can read RIM's account of the outage on their press page.

The apps in question are mostly games with a smattering of productivity apps, and will be available until the end of December - you can see the full list in RIM's press release, linked below for your convenience. Current enterprise customers can request their month of technical support using this link, and the free technical support is also being made available to prospective customers in the form of a free trial.

Source: Research in Motion

Comments Locked

5 Comments

View All Comments

  • claytontullos - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    Why do people still use a blackberry? It just doesn't make any sense.

    If anyone has stock in RIM they are a fool.
  • Omega215D - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    They are still popular in the corporate sector for their security, e-mail notifications, long battery life, and the only company to release camera-free versions of their current hand sets. The last part is important as there are a lot of work places where cameras are not permitted and turning off the phone or taping up the camera doesn't work.

    Blackberries are very dependable phones. Sure they have a long way to go into getting their devices and software to todays top standards but all that power isn't really needed for its intended market.
  • Subzero0000 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    Productivity is going to drop !
  • saarek - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    Fortunately the company I work for recently switched us all to iPhones. Our business relies heavily on email etc and four days worth of outages would have had a significant financial impact.

    The fact that they have not even bothered to advise everyone on what the issue was and what steps they have taken to ensure the issue does not happen again is just the icing on the cake.

    RIM was collapsing before this, they certainly have not done themselves any favours.
  • Pessimism - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    -Some of the apps are not available in regions where the outage hit hardest (middle east, africa etc), I guess due to export restrictions
    -At least three of the apps/games are incompatible with OS7 (their entire new phone lineup)

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now