BlackBerry offers free apps

It’s payback time for beleaguered BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion. RIM said it will let its subscribers download more than $100 worth of free apps from BlackBerry App World, starting Wednesday. The offering is an effort to make amends with customers after a service outage last week left millions of BlackBerry users without access to email, instant messages or mobile Internet last week.
“We are grateful to our loyal BlackBerry customers for their patience,” said RIM co-CEO Mike Lazardis.”We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.” A core switch failure at a network center in the UK apparently caused the problem, which started in Europe and spread to the Middle East, India, Africa, Latin America, Canada, and the United States. A survey conducted last week by European price comparison website Kelkoo found that of 1,000 Blackberry users contacted, 19% were considering dumping the BlackBerry in favor of another smartphone.
RIM is also trying to make amends with its enterprise customers. It’s offering them one month of free technical support. Current customers will get an additional month of free service, and those who do not have contracts will be offered a one month free trial.
Wall Street is worried about what the free offers and lost business will cost RIM (NASDAQ RIMM). The stock opened down almost 5% this morning. Aside from the cost of offering free service, RIM may have to pay some carriers who are compensating customers for their days without service. Spain’s Telefonica SA, as well as some Middle Eastern and Australian carriers, have already told customers they will be compensated, and analysts expect them to try to pass these costs on to RIM.
Today’s free app offer may quell some consumer demand for compensation, or it could create even more discontent. The company cautions that the availability of the offer will depend on the type of BlackBerry used, the operating system, access to BlackBerry App World (a free download which is sure to experience heavy traffic) and local conditions and/or restrictions.
Today RIM published an initial list of the free apps that will be available for four weeks starting Wednesday, saying more will be added later. The current list is as follows:
• 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