RIM Offers Free Apps Following Outage

wiredmikey writes "Following a series of outages last week that affected BlackBerry users around the word over a three day period, RIM has come forward with its plans to "make good" on the incidents that frustrated millions of users who bashed the mobile technology provider. Research In Motion today said it would offer a selection of premium apps worth more than US $100 free of charge to subscribers as 'an expression of appreciation for their patience during the recent service disruptions.' The company also announced that its enterprise customers will also be offered one month of free Technical Support."

Only problem is...

[MrCrassic]

When apps on iOS, Android and even Windows Phone are way better than Blackberry apps and people begin to realise that these types of outages are not possible on those platforms (everything on a Blackberry, including internet usage, goes through continental proxies; not the case on Apple et. al. except for specialised services like iCloud and Gmail and such), free apps aren't good enough. On top of that, this doesn't do anything for companies like mine that prohibit end-users from installing anything on our Blackberry phones for regulatory reasons.

Even if they release a phone that's super-awesome and is somewhat competitive with today's smartphones (so far, this seems unlikely), their hub-spoke service model for consumer service is ridiculously outdated. Wake me up when they've gotten rid of BIS and internet proxies.

Re:Are RIM even trying?

[msobkow]

To be fair, the free apps are being offered to the consumer market. The enterprise is being given a month of free tech support.

Re:Bye bye, RIM

[Just Some Guy]

And in the mean time, our company's mailserver has been at 100% availability outside planned service upgrade windows. 100%. Not a single unplanned outage, ever, in nearly a decade. If there were a multi-day service outage, several people (including me) would be having an extremely unpleasant meeting with the company's owner to explain why we should still be employed.

That's why I have no problem holding RIM accountable. For most people, Gmail, Hotmail, MSN, and Yahoo! are unpaid services. You pay dearly for BlackBerry service, though, and expect a higher level of professionalism out of them. I mean, there are circumstances that you just can't plan for. Rolling out a patch company-wide before testing it isn't one of them.

Re:Bye bye, RIM

[Eil]

Every one of those that you listed is a free consumer-level service. There was never even so much as a hint of guaranteed uptime. In fact, the terms of service quite clearly specify that Google, Yahoo, et al can do literally anything they like, up to and including deleting your account permanently for no reason whatsoever.

RIM developed, marketed, and sold Blackberry as an enterprise communication system. It is most assuredly not free. The government relies on RIM's services, as well as the vast majority of large enterprises. My previous job was a sysadmin in a large financial institution where every minute of downtime was quite realistically estimated in the millions of dollars. Blackberries were how the entire IT department communicated with each other and the monitoring systems both during and after hours. Without the use of our Blackberries, we would have had no way to respond to "host down" alerts coordinate for the nightly 3 a.m. maintenance windows.

Re:Free Technical Support

[Opportunist]

If you have a chance reaching anyone there... I mean, consider this:

1. They probably won't hire more supporters just for a month.
2. During this month, people will call for anything.
3. RIM already showed how well they scale with increased demand.

Re:Bye bye, RIM

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'm sorry to tell you this, but you seriously jinx'd yourself.