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CrackBerry outage over
As the Great BlackBerry Outage ends, the finger-pointing begins.
Research In Motion Ltd. RIM-T said today it has restored service after three days of troubles that frustrated millions of users around the world, The Globe and Mail's Omar El Akkad reports. And co-CEO Mike Lazaridis apologized profusely.
But many questions remain, notably the issue of compensation, and that's where the focus appears to be shifting today with e-mail, messaging and Internet services back up.
“In the past there have been outages but they’ve been limited to an hour here and an hour there and the operators have been tempted to let that go,” Will Draper, an analyst at Espirito Santo, told the Reuters news agency.
“They haven’t been happy about it but it’s not the kind of thing you go to court over. But this is completely different. This is a three-day outage. This is 10 per cent of your working month, so I’m pretty sure there will be compensation claims and I’m pretty sure they’ll try and pass it on to RIM, but my feeling is it will be very difficult to make it stick.”
RIM said today the focus has been on getting service back up, and co-CEO Jim Balsillie added that "this has not been about pointing fingers." Mr. Balsillie did say that the Canadian tech icon will be examining the question of compensation, which is "something we plan to come back to these customers on very soon."
Britain's Vodafone, for example, told Reuters that it's reviewing the compensation issue, but wouldn't say whether it might go after RIM to defray the costs. Telefonica, the Spanish service, said it will definitely compensate customers, but it has to by law. Emirates Telecommunications Corp. is also compensating users. Vodafone's operation in Egypt is giving prepaid clients three days of free service, and post-paid customers a 10-per-cent discount.
"The big challenge for the operators is that it’s cost them a lot in terms of managing the problem," analyst Ben Wood of CCS Insight told Bloomberg News.
RIM has been known for its exceptionally reliable service, though this hit comes at a bad time as competition heats up with the likes of Apple Inc. AAPL-Q and Google Inc. GOOG-Q. The launch of its PlayBook tablet was seen as weak, and its earnings have not been up to snuff where investors are concerned.
“The outage is the largest disruption to RIM's service since December 2009,” said RBC Dominion Securities analyst Mike Abramsky. “The anger generated by these outages could drive some consumers to evaluate alternative smart phones from Android or Apple.”
Mr. Balsillie said the company has worked tirelessly to fix the problem and "nobody's gone home since Monday."
Google on a roll
Google Inc. GOOG-N did it again, posting impressive results in what CEO Larry Page today called a "great quarter."
Third-quarter profit climbed to $2.73-billion (U.S.) or $8.33 a share, compared to $2.17-billion or $6.72 a year earlier. Revenue rose 33 per cent to $9.72-billion, prompting Mr. Page to cite the Internet giant's rise to almost $10-billion in a quarter, as well as the virtues of Google+.
"Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark," he said in a statement. "People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are just getting started."
