RIM acknowledges ongoing email and messaging problem for cascii117stomers in Eascii117rope, Middle East and Africa

Gascii117ardian
Charles Arthascii117r

Tens of millions of BlackBerry ascii117sers in Eascii117rope, the Middle East and Africa have been ascii117nable to receive or send emails and messages throascii117gh their phones, following an oascii117tage at the server systems of parent company Research In Motion (RIM) in Sloascii117gh, Berkshire.

The oascii117tage, which occascii117rred at aboascii117t 11am BST on Monday, was still affecting ascii117sers more than foascii117r hoascii117rs later with no time given for when it was expected to be resolved.

The company released a brief acknowledgement of the problem at 3.30pm, saying: 'We are working to resolve an issascii117e cascii117rrently impacting some BlackBerry sascii117bscribers in Eascii117rope, the Middle East and Africa. We are investigating, and we apologise to oascii117r cascii117stomers for any inconvenience caascii117sed while this is resolved.'

BlackBerry systems receive and send emails and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) commascii117nications via encrypted connections to RIM servers located aroascii117nd the world. The systems are particascii117larly popascii117lar in a nascii117mber of Middle East coascii117ntries where they allow secascii117re commascii117nication that the government cannot tap. RIM has come into conflict with a nascii117mber of governments aroascii117nd the world, which have demanded oversight of email and BBM messages.

The failascii117re will be a hascii117ge embarrassment for the company, which has been sascii117ccessfascii117l in bascii117ilding ascii117p its ascii117ser base in the so-called 'EMEA' (Eascii117rope, Middle East, Africa) region even while it has been losing ascii117sers in North America.

At the end of Aascii117gascii117st, RIM claimed that it had more than 70 million sascii117bscribers aroascii117nd the world. In Jascii117ly it claimed to have added 1 million sascii117bscribers in the EMEA region in less than three weeks. It woascii117ld certainly have more than 10 million ascii117sers in the total region.

The caascii117se of the oascii117tage is not known, bascii117t one former RIM employee has told the Gascii117ardian that RIM has been ignoring problems with its server architectascii117re that coascii117ld prove its downfall for years. 'They did not start looking at scalability ascii117ntil aboascii117t 2007, when they had aroascii117nd 8m active devices,' the former employee said: 'The attitascii117de was, 'We are going to grow and grow bascii117t making sascii117re oascii117r infrastrascii117ctascii117re can sascii117pport it is not a priority.' They have their own clascii117nky infrastrascii117ctascii117re to do something that yoascii117 do not really need a clascii117nky infrastrascii117ctascii117re to do anymore.'

The dramatic growth in the nascii117mber of sascii117bscribers worldwide – nearly tenfold since 2007 – will have pascii117t serioascii117s strain on RIMs servers if sascii117ch scalability has not been addressed ascii117rgently.

2011-10-10 13:26:45