RIM offering free apps to compensate for outage

Chances are RIM made your life a little less convenient last week. A service outage that began in the EMEA region spread across oceans and affected millions of BlackBerry users worldwide. RIM has since restored service after apologizing for the unexpected downtime. This morning they took the apology a step further by offering customers access to a slew of apps that would normally cost them $100. While this is a nice gesture — and we’ll look at the specific apps in just a moment — I have to wonder if this is adequate compensation for such a costly outage. At the same time, I wonder if there’s anything more that RIM could have done in the aftermath. The apps compensation might not quite satisfy BES users. Many IT admins don’t allow users to install games, which represent about half of the listed apps. There are also some apps in general that they won’t install. RIM was quick to nip this issue in the bud, offering BES users a free month of Technical Support. That is, companies that already use Technical Support will have a free month tacked onto their current contract, while those not currently using it will start a month trial. I’m not a BES administrator, nor even a BES user, so I can’t say for certain whether this compensation is adequate. But it does seem like a step above. BIS users will gain access to those $100 worth of apps, though many on the current list are games. Still, there are some decent ones that most BIS users will find useful:

• SIMS 3 – Electronic Arts
• Bejeweled – Electronic Arts
• N.O.V.A. – Gameloft
• Texas Hold’em Poker 2 – Gameloft
• Bubble Bash 2 – Gameloft
• Photo Editor Ultimate – Ice Cold Apps
• DriveSafe.ly Pro – iSpeech.org
• iSpeech Translator Pro – iSpeech.org
• Drive Safe.ly Enterprise – iSpeech.org
• Nobex Radio™ Premium – Nobex
• Shazam Encore – Shazam
• Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant – Vlingo

RIM will start making those apps available starting this Wednesday, October 19th, though it appears that not all of them will be available at once. The press release notes that they’ll “become available to download at BlackBerry App World over a period of four weeks.” They also note that they will add more apps to the list. Here’s my take on the issue. A BlackBerry is a business device, and a lack of service means an inability to conduct business as normal. Small business users with BIS devices could have lost thousands of dollars during the outage. And yet the only compensation they’ll receive involves a list of apps that contains a number of games. I don’t think games are adequate compensation for a serious service outage. I’m not sure what more RIM could have done — giving everyone a free month of service is unrealistic — but if I were a small business owner I’d be more than a little peeved at the outage and the compensation. Yet for the average consumer, this probably works out well. In fact, if you read the comments on the press release at CrackBerry.com, you’ll see many satisfied users. I doubt many small business owners are posting there, but again small businesses do not necessarily account for the majority of BIS users. So while I can see displeasure with both the outage and the compensation from one faction of users, clearly there is another faction that truly appreciates what RIM has done. That might go a long way for them. The biggest issue RIM faces now is with trust. Perhaps their compensation program has helped rebuild trust with its current users. I know I was impressed with the candor of last week’s conference call. The issue is now with pulling in customers on other platforms. If RIM is going to rise up the smartphone ranks again it has to pull from the massive user bases of Android and iPhone. It’s tough to do that when they’re facing days long service outages (while their rivals sell 4 million units on opening weekend). Thankfully, when RIM is ready to make its big play this outage should be out of everyone’s mind. So while the timing might might seem bad now, perhaps it will work out in RIM’s favor in the end. That is, assuming this is the last outage they have for a long, long time.

About the Author

Joe Pawlikowski is the Senior Editor at MobileMoo.com and has been covering the mobile industry full time since 2007. When he's not writing about the tech scene, he can be found discussing his personal love - baseball (and more specifically the New York Yankees) as well as writing on his personal blog.