How [Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead]! After the massive patent infringement lawsuit by NTP against Blackberry’s RIM, after months with millions of Blackberry users worried that they would forever lose their beloved Blackberry service, and pondering life without their Blackberries, and whether there was a Blackberry alternative, and after the 11th hour settlement between Blackberry and NTP to ensure that Blackberry users wouldn’t lose their service, guess what.
They lost their service.
Temporarily, to be sure, but they lost it nonetheless.
And why?
Well, here’s the ultimate irony:
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RIM’s backup plan, should the lawsuit against them have lead to an injunction requiring that they cease offering the service which was alleged to be in infringement of NTP’s patent, was to perform an “upgrade” to the service. The upgrade would have changed the way that the service worked, as a work-around so that the Blackberry service would not be in violation of the NTP patent. It was a big unknown, however, just how well that upgrade would have worked, and whether customers would actually continue to have service when it happened.
Now, while this may not have been the “upgrade” referred to in the context of the lawsuit, Blackberry has performed an upgrade of some sort, and the consequence is that many customers have lost their Blackberry service.
According to a statement issued by Blackberry, “Some BlackBerry Internet Service customers experienced intermittent service earlier this week due to an issue that appears to have stemmed from a software upgrade in RIM’s infrastructure. Service appears to be operating at normal levels at this time. RIM continues to monitor the infrastructure closely.”
Of course, you know what my answer to this is, right?
Yep, get a Sidekick. It’s not only an alternative to the Blackberry, but it’s better than the Blackberry.
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