RIM CIO apologises to BlackBerry users for outage

For most, if not all, BlackBerry users, the last couple of days must have been difficult for RIM’s BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) and BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) systems were inconsistently active. The lack of email and messaging capabilities almost certainly adversely affected BlackBerry’s niche clientele. The company has posted updates on their website publicly apologizing for the down time.

Here’s what was stated -

In Europe, Middle East, India and Africa, we are seeing a significant increase in service levels. Service levels are also progressing well in the U.S., Canada and Latin America and we are seeing increased traffic throughout on most services, although there are still some delays and services levels may still vary amongst customers. Our global teams are continuing to work as quickly as possible to restore full and consistent service across all regions.

Wednesday 12th October – 17:44 (GMT-5)

Service update from RIM CIO

To All BlackBerry Customers:

I want to first apologize for the service interruptions and delays many of you have been experiencing this week. I also wanted to connect with you directly, give you an update on the service issues we are trying to solve, and answer some of the questions and concerns you’ve expressed.

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You’ve depended on us for reliable, real-time communications, and right now we’re letting you down. We are taking this very seriously and have people around the world working around the clock to address this situation. We believe we understand why this happened and we are working to restore normal service levels in all markets as quickly as we can.

Here is the current status of service and issues for the various regions that were impacted:

For Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA):

• Email systems are operating and we are continuing to clear any backlogged messages. Support teams are working to minimize the impact on our customers.
• BBM traffic is online and traffic is passing successfully
• Browsing is temporarily unavailable as the Support teams monitor service stability and continue to assess when this service can be safely brought online
• Support teams have added capacity to help with message delivery between regions and continents

For Canada and Latin America:

• Email systems are operating and we are continuing to clear any backlogged messages. Support teams are working to minimize the impact on our customers
• BBM and browsing services are online and traffic is passing successfully (except for three carrier networks in Latin America that are serviced by the EMEIA infrastructure – browsing is temporarily unavailable for those three carrier networks)
• Support teams are investigating reports of BBM delays

For the U.S.:

• Email systems are operating and we are continuing to clear any backlogged messages. Support teams are working to minimize the impact on our customers.
• Support teams have added capacity to help with message delivery between regions and continents
• BBM and browsing services are online and traffic is passing successfully
• Support teams are investigating reports of BBM delays

We will provide regular updates on BlackBerry.com, RIM.com and via our social channels. We are doing everything in our power to restore regular service everywhere and to restore your trust in us.

Yours sincerely,

Robin Bienfait
Chief Information Officer, RIM

Wednesday 12th October – 16:12 (GMT-5)
RIM is aware of a hoax message that has been circulated recently amongst certain BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) users. This is a hoax chain message. The message did not originate from RIM and does not impact the security of BlackBerry smartphones. Hoax messages are unfortunately an industry-wide issue. Any social messaging application on any platform, mobile or PC can be used to attempt to convince users to forward such hoax messages to one or more of their contacts. RIM recommends that users simply ignore the message and do not forward it, since this would only serve to expand the reach of the hoax message.

Wednesday 12th October - 15:00 (GMT-5)
Listen to the BlackBerry Service Update Press Conference.

Wednesday 12th October – 14:38 (GMT-5)
We continue to work on clearing the message backlog in order to eliminate delays. Thank you for your patience.

Wednesday 12th October – 9:45 (GMT-5)
BlackBerry subscribers in the Americas may be experiencing intermittent service delays this morning. We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we apologize to our customers for any inconvenience. We will provide a further update as soon as more information is available.

Wednesday 12th October – 12:00 (GMT+1)
We know that many of you are still experiencing service problems. The resolution of this service issue is our Number One priority right now and we are working night and day to restore all BlackBerry services to normal levels. We will continue to keep this page updated.

Tuesday 11th October - 21:30 (GMT+1)
The messaging and browsing delays that some of you are still experiencing were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure. Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. 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. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused to many of you and we will continue to keep you informed.

Tuesday 11th October - 16:00 (GMT+1)
Some of you are experiencing messaging and browsing delays. We are working to restore normal service as quickly as possible and we apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

Monday 10th October - 20:46 (GMT+1)
Our sincere apologies to all of you affected by today’s BlackBerry service issues.

Monday 10th October - 15:00 (GMT+1)
We are currently working to resolve an issue impacting some of our BlackBerry customers in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. In the meantime, we apologise to you for any inconvenience, and thank you for your patience.

While the apologies and updates are are definetly appreciated, what is to become of the users who might have suffered significant losses due to the outage? In Colombia, local operators have already requested the Candian company to compensate their customers for the downtime. According to reports, RIM is now stating that services across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India have improved significantly. So far the systems seem to be funtioning normally, however there’s no telling how long it will last seeing as we’ve been experiencing a see-saw effect in the last 3 days. Hopefully we’re back to square one now and a state of normalcy has returned.

If you want to voice your concerns and share your experinces head to this link.