there late

Listening now, did not learn anything new so far

Q&A session

Canned response so far.....

lol no questions?

Just that there is no new problems causing the NA trouble - just back log from the initial problem

They said they'll tell us the number of people affected but they didn't...

Great, I can't even listen to this from my Bold 9900! super fail

very true on the delay between communication from RIM to general public

Aouch, from the global mail rough answers but I understand that they are heavily under pressure, but they should get cooler people communicating

shit, hardly anything valuable

time line for restoration of service?

Last caller asked some hard questions lol

How can a single core switch produce such a global mess?

no absolutely nothing on timeline, before devcon though :)

How big do you think the backlog is? That xould have been interesting to know

We have not got any new informations. Just kidding.

did seriously no one ask about an ETA for restoration ?

Was just listening to the call, horrible crisis management

There are thousands of people at RIM and non-engineers and you are telling us you have been too busy you can't update your users?

On a technical note: If all the messages will be delivered, where do they store them? Either they store all of our messages all the time or they have a magic storage facility that can scale up that fast and can store all messages sent through BIS for several days? Anyone has more knowledge about this?

It is a pity RIM, but as I said already on Monday, you are digging your own grave: http://bit.ly/rim_outage

Wow, that was awful. They didn't answer the (few) questions and didn't tell us anything. It is quite clear that they don't get customer service at all. Frighteningly inept.

You have to think that they don't yet have a clue how to solve the problem or how long it will take, or they would have said something substantial. Things are much, much worse than we thought.

Maybe even the com guys are sending back log emails....
Seriously, I dont care much about com but this was horrible...they could have send at least nice people not robots

Just keep req sevice books over and over 9900 for sale

Big hit to RIM's reputation. Things not looking good.

This conference would hurt RIM more than do anything good...we already know PR of RIM is awe full but it has hit a new low now...

In North America (Wisconsin) and my email and BBM were down for this morning, but about an hour ago (2 pm CST) it was restored.

???

Another reason why RIM needs to ditch BIS for QNX phones...

Best part I got was

"Data backlog causing problems catching up"

And 10000's of users are sending mass Broadcast messages to "fix their bbm". Causing MORE data back up

This is giving Apple even more business. I bet the die hard BlackBerry users regret their bashing of the iPhone 4S now.

cosign on deRusett.....the thousands of jackasses that are sending stupid broadcast messages are making it harder for things to be normal....this outage is a blow to all of us but hopefully they get it restored in time

Most people experiencing "a delay or, in some cases, service interruption." SOME cases? I don't know who is having a "delay" with this--I have had complete service interruption all day. No e-mail, no web, no nada. Way to downplay this major issue RIM--sounds like a BlackBerry PlayBook sales #s call with plenty of propaganda to go around

RIM at its finest - once again showcasing to the world and to their customers just how out of touch, antiquated, incompetent, and ill prepared this company is for the modern age.

And for god sake, get someone who can at least communicate properly with the media. As it is, you've already got major media outlets running rampant with stories of this problem; speculation ranges from anywhere that this is the death knell for the company to its CEO's being forced to resign over this to its stock value dropping so low that a takeover is guaranteed. Might be nice for RIM to step up to the plate with someone who is competent and address what is being reported at within the media.

Particularly in light of the fact that any excitement that had been building up for Devcon has literally been thrown out the window. Now the sole focus will be on what happened and why did it happen.

Rim, if you are listening or reading these posts then get in touch, i look after the biggest datacentres in Europe and work for one of the biggest IT outsourcing companies, we deal with major cliants and yes some of them are your competitors. We work to strict SLA's and so far we achieve for our customers a 98% break fix service on a 4hr fix.
Some of our clients are your competitors but seeing as you seem to be unable to fix the problem it may be time to call in some external resourse to help and aid in getting these servers up and running. We look after data centres in Slough but so far we havent been engaged in your issue.
If you need to contact me then please do and i will supply contact details.
Regards

The message was specifically that your e-mails are being preserved for later distribution - the implication being that all BBM messages are being deleted as they are sent. The more I listen to the call the more it sounds like legal ground being prepared, and the less it seems like a customer-related exercise. If that was RIM's legal team, at least it explains why they were such god-awful PR people.

I have been getting the same 5 emails from last night about 6 times now, wtf!

Who was doing all that typing? Heh heh...

seems like the flow is going got a glut of emails all at once.

At the risk of being jinxed..., I have had service with no interruptions during all of this

Michelle, I still cant find out which conference center handled the call.

There's a whole upside to this outage thing that we all need to consider, and I think we can all sleep easier knowing it.

At least there won't be any riots being organised and excecuted any time soon!

Badum-bum ching!

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=7DF97971FB38E638CF295FE8881...

Gotta love it when crackberry makes the NY TIMES

ChrisInSD - 750+ comments on the blog regarding service interruption... 70MM + BB users.... not sure that's a representative sample of EVERYONE. I had intermittent data problems for only two hours this morning and that was all. If you're affected I am sure it sucks, but don't assume the WHOLE system is affected to that degree.
As for PR, I'm in the investment business and wouldn't put much stock (no pun intended) in what analysts say about a company. A lot of them are like economists and the weather man when it comes to the accuracy of their predictions. The media loves a good story and it's even better when it is negative, hence the use of RIM as the market pinata of choice lately!!

Chill out everyone. What did you want them to say, it's all fixed and everyone gets free ice cream ?

I've had to manage major technical outages and I can tell you, it's not fun. You're trying to fix the problem and get constantly being interrupted by everyone wanting to know when it will fixed. So, you end up making a "Hobson's choice", spending your time reporting to concerned parties, delaying the resolution or managing the fix activities and pissing off your users by not communicating.

What everyone should do is let them do their jobs and if you really want your pound of flesh, bitch at them after.

email not coming through in Southern California on AT&T. And WOW that was a WEAK conference call! Given the circumstances, it should have been one of the two boneheaded CEOs addressing these questions.

Nonetheless, I still love my blackberry. It's like a junkie girlfriend who you know is bad for you but who's too hot to let go.

Here in mid-western Ontario, I've had 1 bbm (the infamous broadcast one), a couple of FB notifications and no email at all since this morning. I'm not overly concerned - but I can well imagine how the enterprise sector is feeling!

Look like they got it fixed as im now receiving BBM messages and a whole load of old emails.. 5:06PM was when my emails started coming in non-stop... Im in the US...

I should not get too beat up about this disaster - it means that RiM will have to pull out all the stops to keep their customer base.

I have also read comments saying that Apple would have handled the situation better - well as an owner of Blackberry and Apple devices remember the antenna issue in the iPhone 4 and rubbish comment of how you should hold it differently etc before finally providing cases etc.

As my Blackberry is currently bust I have been trying to upgrade my iPhone to iOS 5 and guess what? The servers are overloaded.

Anyway as email etc is down I used the fax machine today - it works!

I use BIS in Northern Europe, and for today my "best thing" was that my emails i got a 4 hours later, everything else - silent...

The question is - How does it comes that big RIM can't fix it in a 3 days time (is it?) ? :(

Hope all's going to be solved by the night. :/ ( I'm at GMT + 02)

So my 9900's useless right now.....

Well my e-mails are finally back to normal here in Texas. But my cell coverage has been poor around my house for the last 4 days. Must be a cell site problem.

Apple would handle this better because they do not manage email, BBM or internet traffic for there devices.
That's all done by the various carriers and Apple will not help you if you lose any data on your device or if you are missing emails.

If you really realize the amount and type of data RIM actually handles, you realize that any origination would be under enormous pressure to manage a incident like this well.

Finaly! After three days of outage my blackberry can get information via email, twitter, BeWeather.

O2, Scotland

Looks like everything is working, a bit slower than previous, but hope that the backlogs will go through during the night..

btw - pissed of because of the RIMs communication. If they would have said that - sorry, we will fix this till 12pm wednesday, and would give more status updates, saying how is the progress and so on, then the people wouldn't be so angry about this. Not the bes timing - these three days just showed me that i should really think about my next phone as iPhone..

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.
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
http://www.rim.com/newsroom/service-update.shtml

Sky News UK

http://news.sky.com/home/technology/article/16088130