We didn’t want to title this post “Yet Another BlackBerry Outage” because we’ve done that two or three times already. I’ve got the same things to say about todays outage that I’ve had to say about the last 3 or 4 of them. Research in Motion flat out shouldn’t have these kind of outages.
I am sure that RIM will eventually release the reason why you and I weren’t able to get email all afternoon, but as my grandfather used to always tell me… “Excuses don’t explain and explanations never excuse.”
This problem major outages that Research in Motion has experienced over the last year and a half or so simply is inexcusable. RIM needs to pour whatever resources they need to into figuring out how to get passed having a single point of failure that takes down email for large parts, if not, most of North America in a singe swoop of the sword.
ni hao?
Robb;
Luckly your iPhone kept on working right on thru RIM’s latest failure….
When the word “Americas” is used, think the failure was more than just North America.
“RIM support account manager Bryan Simpson affirmed that a “critical severity outage” had taken place. The message went on to say that it was acting as an “emergency notification regarding the current BlackBerry Infrastructure outage,” that was (is) affecting enterprise subscribers and “users of the Americas network.” So much for that “won’t happen again” line, huh?”
“A “critical severity outage,” related to infrastructure problems. The outage reportedly affected enterprise clients and users of RIM’s Americas network.”
Sure seems consumers better wake up and learn that RIM’s network is not mission critical. RIM’s constant problematic infrastructure show that relying completely on RIM to serve data is not the right way forward for data service reliability. RIM has proven this true time and time again with it’s string of recent network failures.
The solution is simple:
iPhone for Business Is Now in Business
http://gizmodo.com/347063/iphone-for-business-is-now-in-business
iPhone combines three amazing products: a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod and a breakthrough Internet device with rich HTML email, web browsing, searching and maps. It’s also a great communications and productivity tool for business professionals.
3.5-inch widescreen multi-touch display
Built-in Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), EDGE and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR for wireless data connectivity
Rich HTML email supporting POP3 and IMAP solutions
Visual Voicemail – select and listen to messages in whatever order you want – just like email
we are a large user community of BB, for the last week we had a lot of trouble with BB at some point i thought it was the BES, finally i came up to know that RIM had a outage that lasted more than 5 hours, none of the operators accross USA knew whats was going on neither RIM. RIM shoul be liable for the financial demage caused by this.
waaaa….who cares if there is an outage. Its not like it happens every day. we all spend too much time on these things anyway. Go take a walk or something…
You’re right AF. It doesn’t happen every day… Just every 2 months or so. I am sure that most companies have no problem with six or seven major outages per year.
Yesterday made me think just how big the Blackberry is when an outage occurs and Marketwatch.com sends out an alert to those that subscibe “BlackBerry service outage hits AT&T customers across North America”. What other device warrants such alerts and news?
Also, I agree with AF as well…as much as I depend on the device, once every few months isn’t going to hurt. I just resort back to using my laptop and booting it up. Big deal. It’s also a great excuse to just stop looking at the damn thing anyway.
With regard to yesterday, I went down for approximately two hours. I was actually still receiving emails when the announcement came out, but stopped about 1-2 hours after. I’m on VZW, so I think it hit everyone. BGR posts were reporting the same all over the country. So while Marketwatch said it was AT&T in their headline, I think it was everyone.
Come on people. RIM has had very little problems with their service. Its not like you cant sit down at a computer and check your email. Personally I enjoyed having some down time. Its exactly like internet service…sometimes accidents or unforseen thins occurr, that you can’t do anything about.
Many of ther arguments being made as to why RIM having the the occasional major outage every couple of months is not a big deal are missing the bigger picture. Having managed data centers and been servant to the SLA I can tell you that the severity of the outages and the frequency at which RIM has them is abysmal.
Let’s not forget that most BlackBerry users are corporate business users. BlackBerry service in many companies is considered mission critical and the inability to send and receive email as well as use business applications for 5 and a half hours cost companies millions.
Beleive it or not, I was in a sales kick-off for my day job with 1300 sales and marketing folks all which completely freaked out when they could check email during breaks. Trust me when I tell you that it was not a pretty sight…
By the way DFG, It is exactly like “you can’t sit at your computer and check your email.” Not having to is the exactly the reason for having a BlackBerry.
Making excuses for RIM’s service failures is LAME. Blackberry is big and a outage IS big news since as Robb said Blackberry is considered by some to be mission critical, which with all the recent failures consumers are finding blackberry’s infrastructure is not mission critical. International news stories pointing out RIM’s failures is sure is not a positive for RIM. “What other device warrants such alerts and news?” What other device becomes a complete boat anchor when it’s single service provider systems crap out? Certainly not any devices which are designed to be mission critical. On April 20, 2007 (Co-CEO of RIM, Jim Balsillie. “I think it’s pretty likely that the systems are in place that this kind of thing, as incredibly unlikely as it is to happen, is all the more unlikely to happen again.” either was flat out lying OR was blowing smoke up all it’s customers skirts. Bet IT’s in every corner of the Americas are reevaluating or at very least coming up with secondary systems to keep it’s staff’s up since RIM has shown that they can’t.
Allowing RIM off the hook is completely LAME, but then again most of those opinions are coming from the same people who excuse verizon for it’s device crippling, feature and function removal and nickel and diming of consumer’s. Way to go girls, keep enjoying RIM’s failures since with your excuses RIM has no reason to build a mission critical service.
“Experts said RIM’s system is relatively reliable, but its centralized structure means that when there are problems, they can affect millions of users.
E-mail sent to and from BlackBerry phones in North America all goes through a Network Operations Center. It appears the problem occurred there, when one of two Internet addresses that relay e-mail from corporate servers stopped responding, according to Zenprise, a Fremont, Calif., company that helps companies troubleshoot BlackBerry problems.
“Any time you got a system that’s got a NOC, a Network Operations Center, you have the potential for a single point of failure,” said Jack Gold, with technology analyst firm J.Gold Associates in Northborough, Mass.
“What’s a bit surprising to me is that with all the work they’ve been doing over time … that they haven’t been able to have enough redundancy in the NOC so that there isn’t a single point of failure,” said Gold, who has done business with RIM.
Microsoft’s and other device manufacture’s competing solution for mobile corporate e-mail doesn’t use an equivalent to the NOC. Instead, it sends e-mail directly from a corporate server to user’s handsets. That means widespread outages are unlikely, though the system can fail on the local level.
“Those types of issues occur so often … they slide under the radar,” said Chris Ambrosio, director of wireless research at Strategy Analytics.”
The single point NOS is RIM’s problem, and it’s a serious problem for it’s consumers.
I agree that this is inexcusable. RIM needs to visit the Google campus and learn how to scale servers. Google handles far more data traffic every day than RIM, and never seems to go down.
If RIM wants to be the major player it does, it needs to deliver. They certainly have the money to make the system reliable.
BlackBerry’s Lead at Risk After North America Failure
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aM_aqrzVvvro
“Research In Motion Ltd.’s second BlackBerry failure in 10 months risks damaging the company’s reputation as the most reliable service and gives a boost to Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Nokia”
“Companies may increasingly opt for e-mail services that offer more flexibility, shying away from systems such as the BlackBerry that are fully controlled by Research In Motion, said Gartner Inc. analyst Phillip Redman. Customers using Apple’s iPhone or handsets with Microsoft’s Windows have more control over the servers and software that run their e-mail systems.
“We see quite a bit of growth for Windows Mobile e-mail,” said Redman, who is based in Boston and lost his BlackBerry access yesterday. “If BlackBerry service outages become more frequent, then that growth could accelerate.”
“This may open up the door for some competitors to come in,” said Richard Williams, an analyst at Cross Research in Livingston, New Jersey. “Whenever there’s an outage, it causes IT managers to look around.”
Cross Research uses the iPhone, which is “more than adequate” for business purposes, Williams said.”
@ hellno
Cross Research…all ‘6’ employees. Comon’.
If you’re going to paste these stories where the company says the iPhone is “more than adequate” for business purposes, then find someone who has rolled them out to the level that a large BlackBerry shop has and lets see how they do and compare. Until that day comes, BB remains on top.
http://www.manta.com/comsite5/bin/pddnb_company.pl?pdlanding=1&referid=4490&id=0m16rx
I’m getting bored.
bluehorseshoe, if your getting bored then your free at any time to leave the discussion instead of wow’ing us with your FUD.
Don’t think it’s up to you or I to question the opinion of RIchard Williams, an analyst at Cross Research in Livingston, New Jersey.
Noticed you didn’t feel the need to FUD about Gartner Inc. analyst Phillip Redman statements.
Get off your anti- iPhone thrown your FUD is the only boring thing here…. RIchard Williams of Cross Research also says your wrong.
The FACT remains Massive Blackberry outage affects all of North America; iPhone (Nokia and Windows Mobile) users were unaffected. RIM’s single point NOC is not a smart system for critical service. IT’s WILL look for options and make changes. Those changes will include Nokia, WM and of course the iPhone.
@ Thought
I’d say it’s a bit unfair when when you toss RIM up against a company (Google) that has a market cap of more then 100 billion than they do. They are in a higher margin business (BB gets dragged down by the hardware costs for the phone) which allows them to spend on the meat and gravy…Linux Boxes.
@ Robb
Comon’. Those ‘not having to’ sit by your computer moments are how often and long? What did people do before the BlackBerry? When email service is down it will cost millions? No back up plan like making a call? Booting up? I understand the frustration level, but if you’re in IT, then you’re familiar that it applies to everything IT.
@ hellno
Bluehorseshoe Research says you’re an idiot. Take your FUD and shove it up your A**. 🙂
“Hellno is an idiot”.
– Gartner Group
And yes, I’m bored with you.
Typical bluehorseshoe…. how sad when the TRUTH can not be accepted, like a child backed into a corner lashing out with LAME personal attacks.
The grown ups are talking about RIM and it’s failures. Be bored and be gone, zip it and LEARN.
ps, bluehorseshoe keep your excuses to yourself. It’s insulting for you to call out our host Robb and Thought just because they don’t feel the need to defend RIM like a fanboy. RIM’s service FAILED again.
The TRUTH is RIM’s single point NOC is not a smart system for mission critical service, which the Blackberry service is (wrongly) thought to be. There are/have been too many service failures. Customers and IT dept’s. are looking for alternatives. How many technology analyst’s faulting RIM’s single point NOC, how many RIM failures will it take for a fanboy named bluehorseshoe to LEARN the TRUTH and accept it?
No matter how many desperate posts bluehorseshoe makes, no matter how many excuses bluehorseshoe makes for RIM’s failures when RIM’s service fails blackberry devices become paper weights.
@bluehorseshoe,
I see where you are coming from as far as the individual BlackBerry users is concerned, however, when you look at it from the massive productivity loss across large organizations, the effect is substantial.
When millions of people can’t process orders, look up contacts, respond to support issues, get to your CRM, be notified of a downed server, send or receive email, etc., etc., etc., for an entire Monday afternoon, an executive or two needs to enter the job market.
This is just not acceptable. RIM needs to fix this.