back to article BlackBerry stumbles to feet, full of apologies

BlackBerry services are up again, though still processing a considerable backlog of traffic, but now we have a CEO's statement promising the company will try harder in future. The services started to come back online during the night, with web browsing in Europe being the last service to be restored. Late last night US …

COMMENTS

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  1. TheOtherJola
    Megaphone

    Rats, sinking ships, etc

    I had enough yesterday and ordered an Android device. I wonder how many other people have done the same.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      An Android device?

      Care to be a bit more specific?

      I ordered an iPhone 4s.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        oh well

        More fool you then.....

      2. BristolBachelor Gold badge

        "Care to be a bit more specific?"

        Does it matter? I thought that with any Android device, you got connectivity through your service provider. If they fall over, just change the SIM.

        It sounds like Blackberry insist that all devices route everything through Canada, so changing your SIM doesn't help.

  2. TeeCee Gold badge
    Joke

    So.

    Blackberry Parfait next?

  3. dfgraham
    Facepalm

    I Still Like The Work Functions

    As a proud Canuck, I really hope they pull through. I've tried Android, and iPhone 4; I still like BB for business use. Encrypted automatic back up, BB protect, etc. Please fell free to educate me if I can restore my device from the cloud encrypted with another platform in a few minutes.

    1. IO-IO
      Holmes

      icloud

      automatic backups to icloud - encrypted.

    2. Zippy the Pinhead
      Stop

      @dfgraham

      You can do this on Android as well

  4. Bunker_Monkey
    FAIL

    Symbian all the way Baby!

    I can happily say having a Symbian S60 based phone. LOL

    That is all

    1. Wize

      Is that post supposed to be sarcastic

      Or do you believe there is a road ahead on a dead end operating system that's often installed on shoddy hardware?

      1. Bunker_Monkey
        FAIL

        Yes it was sarcastic but whilst ppl with raspberrys couldnt get data.. My S60 could!

        Thats the point. Yes old and on its way out but it still works..

        1. Wize

          And so coud...

          ...iphones, android, etc.

          What was your point?

    2. Anonymous Coward 15
      Paris Hilton

      I shall add the usual mention of Sybian here.

      NSFW, in case you didn't know.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Screw RIM

    they've done their last RIM Job on me and my company. We've ordered new handsets with a different company, as these problems have hit us in APJ and the Americas several times in the last year.

    To sit idly by on madame CEO's haunches for 2+ days and say SFA was inexcusable. Tis truly End of Days for RIM....

  6. GeorgeTuk
    Meh

    I told you so...

    I hate to say it but their concentration into just a few datacentres serving such massive populations and geographical areas means when a problem occurs it takes out a massive area.

    They said the issue originally occured in Slough and wiped out the whole of EMEA, what about a redundant one somewhere else?

    Still would rather give out Blackberrys for work phones, so much easier manage. Though Exchange 2010 does do link ups and control of data better.

    1. Kevin Gurney

      what about a redundant one somewhere else?

      Allegedly there was a fail over system that didn't kick in as they expected it to.....if you believe the explanation of course.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Whose kit

        Which manufacturer has the pleasure of having to deal with the fallout of having been the provider of this failed system. Do we know??

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Funny old world

    I remember when customer service was about giving (or restoring) service to customers.

    Nowadays all we get is a repetition of the customer complaint with "lessons will be learned" tagged on the end.

    "Oi, I am not getting the service I have paid for, this is not acceptable"

    "we have identified that we are not providing the service you have paid for. We don't think this is acceptable. We will learn from this mistake"

    I'm sure all this stems from the example set by MPs who apologise when they break the law and then just carry on as before, as if the actual law breaking doesn't matter as long as you apologise*.

    *except when you are not an MP, rich or famous of course in which case you must be punished anyway.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    lol Blackberry

    Good luck connecting your RIM to an 802.1x wireless network. And paying extra to actually use email on the device WTF is that about? Enjoy all your apps too, NOT.

    Sent from my iPhone

  9. Neil Charles
    FAIL

    These PR apologies wind me up

    "You’ve depended on us for reliable, real-time communications, and right now we’re letting you down,"

    They were pushing a similar line on Radio 5 yesterday.

    Our amazing, real time, well priced, trusted, reliable, technologically advanced, indispensible, did I mention real time?, usually immaculate service, with great handsets...

    ...isn't working at the moment. Sorry.

    Put aside the instinct to use any media exposure as a chance to advertise and just b***dy apologise.

  10. Whitespace

    Question

    Did this also affect users of BES servers?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yup

      It sure did...

      On the bright side, it meant I didn't get woken up as my on-call BB didn't wake me =)

    2. al 3
      Thumb Up

      Not mine

      My paltry little 200 user BES worked seamlessly all the way through......

      what a palaver though, the pateience and tolerance shown by tech users is a wonder to behold ;-)

      I say bring on a lovely sunspot/flare driven EMP strike, then everything will be F^&cked,

      what you all gonna do then ??

  11. Bear Features

    Sadly RIM will be forced to change. Governments hate them, all governments. A facility that encrypts people's communication? Tut tut.

  12. Nick Woodruffe
    Joke

    Says it all right here

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI

  13. Jess

    What was really annoying ...

    ... (and also happened when I went abroad) was that a load of apps refused to work on wifi, because even then (for no good reason) they are still routed through BIS.

    This flaw is the thing most likely to make me change.

    Had this design flaw not existed, I would not have lost a day's work dues to not receiving a message. (unfortunately the backup message was sent to my old mobile, which I didn't have with me.)

    It is ridiculous that when BIS fails (or is BLOCKED due to being in the wrong country) the functionality is less than a standard smartphone on only wifi.

    So the question is, do I try and get an N8 or go for Android?

    1. Stuart Clark 2
      WTF?

      A N8? For real? Unfortunately Nokia murdered Symbian (and Meego). It's simply not worth going with a platform that's dying.... you won't get any support or apps or love.

      Go with Android if you want an unlocked experience. Go with iPhone if you want to be locked to Apple but have something that apparently "just works". Go with Windows phone if you're stupid.

      Personally I use Android. Yeah, there's a few missing bits, but I can usually find an app to do what I want. And I'm not tied to one network or provider or server or anything. If the phone / network fails, I get a new one / new SIM and off I go again! :)

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Happy with the N8

      I ummed and ahhed and stuck with a Nokia.

      The e-mail wizard tries to route the main free e-mail providers through Nokia's servers, you just need to deny the T&Cs when it asks you though and set it up manually though.

      Run software update and you'll find Symbian Anna is quite pleasant to use and bodes well for Symbian Belle and I personally haven't noticed the supposed lack of apps in Nokia's app store, although I'm not one of those who feels the need to download 100 fart apps.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I used this downtime...

    ... as an opportunity to remind all 40 affected users that they really arn't that important after all, and if they couldn't get emails, then they should use their phones to actually phone people. I got all sorts of crap that they needed backup, so I kept pointing out that the phone itself IS the backup.

    3 days later, business remains unaffected, orders keep rolling in, quotes keep going out. The apocolypse as predicted by the screaming salesmen on the first day didn't occur.

    We wont be making any changes to the phones, as I predict many other enterprise customers won't, simply because the Blackberry is the only phone that will allow us to retain our security accreditation. No other phone has come close in trials.

    1. Sleepy 3
      Thumb Up

      "Blackberry is the only phone that will allow us to retain our security accreditation"

      This is the heart of the matter, and the only reason our company are all still carrying Blackberries around. Androids are not a secure business phone. They suck so much at being secure it's not funny, and anyone letting their employees access their networks on them in any way, shape or form is just asking for trouble.

      1. 100113.1537

        Spot on - why is RIM being bagged at the moment?

        This is the whole point - business is still using RIM and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. iPhone and Android are sharing the consumer market, but so what? All the stories are about RIM losing "market share", but that is because the market is growing like topsy and I've yet to see any data on actual number of handsets sold.

        The coverage given to this (and every glitch from RIM) makes me wonder who is putting the boot in? There were stories all over our (local) news shows yesterday and today about this, despite the fact that hardly any people were affected in Canada. If i were a conspiracy-type i would be wondering who is manipulating the stock price....

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Who's kit is in the Core

    And who makes the switche(s) that failed? If it happens here, why will it not happen elsewhere?

  16. Barracoder
    Paris Hilton

    Factor 1000 SPF

    Single point of failure. 'Nuff said.

    Paris, because I love her 'nuff.

  17. Anonymous Coward 15
    Joke

    BlackBerry crumble

    is reheated again.

  18. Paul Stimpson
    FAIL

    I'm a mobile worker and for a lot of the day, my mobile device is my office. I know things go wrong and I don't hold that against anyone. The thing I'm unhappy with is that their failover didn't function and they didn't have a working disaster recovery plan.

    "Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested." From this I would infer that one or more of the following could be true: 1) The testing wasn't adequate. 2) RIM's change control isn't being properly enforced, somebody changed something after the tests and didn't retest. 3) Some resource the failover required failed, their monitoring wasn't up to the job and they didn't notice until it was too late.

    I don't really care which of the above is true; Whichever it is, it makes me question the quality of their systems and procedures. The lack of a prompt and efficient DR plan kicking in negates the trust RIM had built up with me over the last 4 years.

    I came out of contract last week and I'm due a device upgrade. The Blackberry Torch just got removed from the short list. I'm just hanging on for the HTC Sensation Beats Edition to become available on my carrier. If that isn't going to happen, I will either go for the regular Sensation or the Samsung Galaxy S2.

    So long RIM and thanks for all the fish.

  19. Steve Evans
    Big Brother

    Haha...

    Bet RIM won't believe HM gov next time they say inserting that message surveillance system will be seamless.

  20. georgeandthedragon

    Food for Thought

    Some say that RIM made a number of UK support staff redundant last week because they can get their services cheaper elsewhere.

    All I know is, you get what you pay for.

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