BlackBerry outage ends, but cause still under review

One measure of the established use of wireless e-mail in general and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry devices in the United States in particular: an overnight outage of RIM’s service in the U.S. made news.
BlackBerry users’ level of dependence on their devices and e-mail service has for years been reflected in the nickname “CrackBerry.”
According to media reports, the outage-affecting all U.S. carriers whose subscribers have mobile e-mail service from RIM-began about 8 p.m. EDT yesterday. Resolution of the problem didn’t occur until 6 a.m. this morning. Delivery of the backlog of e-mails apparently may take longer.
RIM made the following statement: “A service interruption occurred Tuesday night that affected BlackBerry in North America. E-mail delivery was delayed or intermittent during the service interruption. Phone service on BlackBerry handsets was unaffected.
“Root cause is currently under review. But service for most customers was restored overnight and RIM is closely monitoring systems in order to maintain normal service levels.”
RIM operates two network operations centers, or NOCs, near its headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, which process e-mail running on its system.
“We believe this issue will raise speculation that enterprises may look more aggressively to other solutions,” wrote UBS analyst Maynard Um in a note to investors. “While enterprises may look at competitive solutions, we do believe RIM continues to maintain at least a 1-2 year lead over its competitors in the enterprise market and do not expect replacements near/midterm.”
Um also added that the situation may cause RIM to further investments into its NOC “in terms of redundancies, capacity, etc.”
RIM has recently had success in expanding its traditional enterprise and government markets into the consumer market with its Pearl device. Earnings announced last week included a sizeable jump in sales and the addition of one million subscribers in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, bringing its user base to 8 million worldwide.