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RIM Offers Free Apps Following Outage
wiredmikey writes "Following a series of outages last week that affected BlackBerry users around the word over a three day period, RIM has come forward with its plans to "make good" on the incidents that frustrated millions of users who bashed the mobile technology provider. Research In Motion today said it would offer a selection of premium apps worth more than US $100 free of charge to subscribers as 'an expression of appreciation for their patience during the recent service disruptions.' The company also announced that its enterprise customers will also be offered one month of free Technical Support."
I wasn't even aware there was $100 worth of apps on the BlackBerry app store to begin with!
This is the second major outage RIM has experienced while my company has used their phones. Unfortunately for them, this one came right in the middle of my company's evaluation period for new phones company-wde and it just sealed their fate. RIM's going bye-bye.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
I'd use that free month's worth of support to have RIM help me move my account to another service.
Wonder if they'll do that?
When apps on iOS, Android and even Windows Phone are way better than Blackberry apps and people begin to realise that these types of outages are not possible on those platforms (everything on a Blackberry, including internet usage, goes through continental proxies; not the case on Apple et. al. except for specialised services like iCloud and Gmail and such), free apps aren't good enough. On top of that, this doesn't do anything for companies like mine that prohibit end-users from installing anything on our Blackberry phones for regulatory reasons.
Even if they release a phone that's super-awesome and is somewhat competitive with today's smartphones (so far, this seems unlikely), their hub-spoke service model for consumer service is ridiculously outdated. Wake me up when they've gotten rid of BIS and internet proxies.
Listed on SlashGear:
I didn't see a list of the free apps in the linked article. Odd that I actually bother to RTFA and I get no useful information on it. In other words, good summary by slashdot of a terrible article.
You should have read all the way to the end:
RIM said the apps will be made available to customers over the coming weeks on BlackBerry® App World and will be available through the end of this year.
This is marketspeak for "We'll offer it when we get around to making the list of the bottom-100 selling apps that we can foist off on you as a freebie. It'll probably be Q2 of next year before we decide."
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
The initial list of apps is up at http://crackberry.com/research-motion-offers-free-premium-apps-customers-following-service-interruptions
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
As a BB owner, why bother at all? Either they have the person hooked on a corp account, hooked on BBM, or waiting to get off a contract to buy a iPhone or Droid. BB will not be my next phone.
Just asking.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Loyal but pi**ed off Blackberry user here... I was impacted by the outage last week. Run a small consulting firm, no BES so I am reliant on Blackberry's infrastructure via my mobile telco. Listen here RIM, if I wanted apps I'd buy an iPhone. Any compensation for us business users? Blackberry's roots are with business users and the enterprise environment, which is why I have continued to suffer with the device as more flash products have been released by RIM's competitors. Last week's outage was such a serious blow to RIM as the back-end Blackberry infrastructure remains their only remaining advantage. The Blackberry Torch -- which I loath for many reasons -- is so gutless that it is barely usable for surfing the web let alone for running Apps. RIM has taken last week's disaster as an opportunity to market their no-doubt underutilized App store. Very disappointing RIM...
Of course, on the flip side, $100 of stupid game apps for delaying the sending of critical emails by over 4 hours is utterly ridiculous, and bordering on the insulting.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
hey hey hey! That's RIAA/MPAA accounting you've got going on there.
Were you going to buy those apps?
If no, then clearly they lose nothing by just giving them to you.
Ergo their worth is actually $0.
Aren't you pissed that RIM would compensate you for the annoyance - and others for the full-on downtime - with squat?
Hmm wait, I think I'm wielding that double-edged sword wrong..
The only thing missing from this 'premium' list is a fart app.
I ask this in all seriousness: Are RIM even trying?
The core of their business that they built up was corporate customers who they sold BES to. But the first 5 apps they're offering are all games.
Meanwhile, the various Android phone vendors and Apple have been merrily chipping away at the corporate market at a rate of knots and are now starting to look at the low-end handsets that are subsidised to the point of being incredibly cheap even on pay-as-you-go.
AFAICT, more-or-less all of RIM's unique selling points have been eradicated over the last few years and all that remains now is "All your data traffic is routed through our servers so if we experience significant downtime - which can and indeed has happened - your smartphone becomes a dumbphone". Not really much of a selling point.
Yeah I keep hearing this spin. We are a BES user and all our BB's were all down for 2 days and some were down for all 3 days!
Indeed, this means the more loyal customers who've already purchased many of these apps will be disproportionately rewarded (unless it's just $100 to spend on whatever they please). Either way the company is acting like it's a given that this is more than adequate compensation - for businesses who rely on the service it could well be a drop in the ocean of their losses for the period the service was down.
Is secure communication important for you or not.
If secure communication is important to me, I want my data to go through a VPN that I control, not through the VPN of some random telecom company. By the way, several governments aked RIM to give them access to the data, so I'm not really sure what kind of security is given by their VPN.
RIM: "As a show of...appreciation for your patience during the recent service disruptions, umm...here's a sandwich!"
Customer: "But-"
RIM: "Thanks for coming everybody! Goodnight!"
Customer: "Noooo! Wait!"
RIM: "What? You got your sandwich!"