RIM, with BlackBerry outages spreading, hasn't seen the worst of it

BlackBerry maker RIM, heading into its third day of serious service failures, began sharing some details about the outages, just as they appear to be getting worse.

By 10 a.m. Eastern Time this morning, The New York Times had sent out a company-wide email, warning:

Blackberry has reported an issue on their infrastructure. Blackberry
devices are experiencing sporadic delays in sending and receiving
messages.

We are currently engaged with our management team at Blackberry as
they attempt to restore service. Currently there is no ETA.

We will send periodic updates as more information is available.

RIM blamed issues plaguing users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina on the failure of a core switch within RIM's infrastructure.

"Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested," it told Pocket-lint in an Oct. 11 statement.

"As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible," it continued. "We apologize for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed."

In its official Twitter feed, the company has been apologetic. "Some users in EMEA are experiencing issues. We're investigating, and we apologize for any inconvenience," said an Oct. 10 Tweet.

More apologies came the next day, and around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, it Tweeted: "We're aware many of you are experiencing service delays. Restoring full service is our number 1 priority."

It also pointed users to a BlackBerry Service Update page, where there are more apologies and for now minimal news. BlackBerry subscribers in the Americas may be experiencing intermittent service delays this morning," the company acknowledged today, at the start of London's workday.

Just how bad things will get — and for how long — remains to be seen. Either way, RIM may have to express additional regrets with its wallet. Though the smear to its reputation, at a time when it's already struggling to hold its ground, will surely hurt it worse than any financial compensation, says analyst Roger Kay, with Endpoint Technologies.

"The key element is reliability," said Kay. "If RIM causes people to wonder about what was supposed to be an enterprise-class service, it opens the possibility for other suppliers to move in further on RIM's turf. Apple is already putting the hurt on RIM, as is Android to some degree. And waiting in the wings is Microsoft with Windows Phone 7."

Neil Mawston, with Strategy Analytics, agrees that RIM needs to avoid a "perceived reputation for unreliable service," lest it send consumer and enterprise customers considering devices from Apple, Samsung and elsewhere.

"We think a sincere apology from RIM should suffice for consumer users," Mawston added, "while enterprise customers, if they have been affected, will be seeking extra reassurances that any major outages will not reoccur in the future."