Advertisement

BlackBerry outage: Did you survive the Black(Berry) plague?

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

BlackBerry outage got you down? Then pull up a chair and watch this ABC News video.

Normally we’re not in the business of touting the competition. But this video by ABC correspondent John Berman had us LOL-ing and forwarding it to friends. That’s when we realized we had to share.

It makes fun of us for -- er, we mean, it makes fun of those people who were pulling out their hair this week because their BlackBerries were on the fritz.

Advertisement

Quick rewind for everyone not in on the joke: BlackBerries worldwide have been experiencing widespread outages this week. The problems have created a public relations nightmare for Research in Motion, the Canadian makers of the popular devices, which blames the woes on a series of infrastructure failures.

Millions of users have spent the week blasting the company for missed e-mails, browser failures and an inability to have instantaneous access to the world at large. As the video above points out, the outages forced some people to resort to extreme measures such as -- gasp! -- using their BlackBerry to make an actual phone call.

The outages couldn’t come at a worse time for RIM. The iPhone and Android have been slowly eroding BlackBerry’s market share, and the company’s stock is down about 60%. Moreover, many outraged BlackBerry users took to RIM’s Facebook page this week to say they were abandoning ship for the new iPhone. (Good luck getting one of those anytime soon.)

It was enough to make Mike Lazaridis, RIM’s president and co-chief executive, post an apology video on the company’s website and announce that service has been fully restored. No offense to Lazaridis, but we liked Berman’s video a whole lot better. It starts strong, and just gets stronger. Enjoy!

Maybe you’ll even be able watch it on your BlackBerry.

ALSO:

Man found not guilty after 25 years in prison

Advertisement

Why cars keep crashing into building in Buffalo

Florida lawmaker calls for firing squads, electric chairs

-- Rene Lynch
twitter.com/renelynch

Advertisement