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DaffyDuck
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... and thus it begins.
RIM investor Jaguar forming pact to demand CEO overthrow
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/10/11/jaguar.says.12pc.of.rim.investors.want.change/
Jaguar says 12pc of RIM investors want change
Increasingly vocal investor firm Jaguar Financial put out a statement Tuesday saying it had raised support for its demand for a corporate sale or makeover. The group said it already had eight percent of all of the BlackBerry's makers onside and was making deals it hoped could boost that to 12 percent. Jaguar chief Vic Alboini claimed that the two RIM CEOs had led the company off the innovative track and that it was following trends, not setting them.
RIM is a "reactionary company trying to compete in an innovative industry," Alboini said. "The timing is very ripe now for a new CEO to step in."
Even with its maximum collective support so far, Jaguar wouldn't have the option of directly challenging RIM. It may still get a much more public stage for its objections and could make it difficult to ignore dissent at RIM's next shareholder meeting, where it lets investors ask questions. This year, the session appeared unusually and uniformly supportive of the status quo.
RIM briefly negotiated time for itself just before the last meeting with a deal to investigate a change but, so far, isn't known to have either published findings or suggested changes. The two CEOs, whose management structure is very rare, have claimed that they are uniquely qualified and that RIM could only transition over to a whole new smartphone platform with its existing, stable leadership.
Jaguar itself has come under fire as Alboini has been accused by Canada's investment regulators of breaking trading rules. The vocalization still has a grounding in results, as RIM's dramatic falloff in shipments and consistent over-optimism in its outlook has led some to wonder whether the company has a definite plan for countering Android and the iPhone as well as an attempt to restart its stalled tablet line.
Read more: http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/10/11/jaguar.says.12pc.of.rim.investors.want.change/
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 4:25 pm on Oct. 11, 2011
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DaffyDuck
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Oops, not looking good for RIM...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/11/blackberry-users-revolt-against-rim
BlackBerry users revolt against RIM as disruption spreads
Smartphone maker Research In Motion (RIM) is facing a user revolt after tens of millions of users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa suffered a second day without services such as BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), as the company struggled with problems at its hub in Slough, Berkshire.
The company also revealed that the areas affected now include South America, with users in Brazil, Chile and Argentina suffering loss of service.
With more than 70 million subscribers to its services around the world, RIM may have suffered lasting damage to its reputation. Reaction on social networks suggested that some users are considering moving to other platforms, such as Android phones or Apple's iPhone, which are not reliant on RIM's centralised service for connectivity.
The Guardian understands the problems have been caused by database corruption in Slough. Though the teams believed it had been fixed on Monday, the problem reappeared on Tuesday, effectively disabling the network operations centre. The Guardian also understands that RIM's staff now hope to have the problem fixed by 8am BST on Wednesday.
Update: in a statement released at 2200 BST in the UK, RIM said: "The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure. Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed."
The outage follows one that began on Monday morning at about 11am BST and lasted until late in the afternoon. RIM had indicated that the problem was fixed, but on Tuesday morning BlackBerry users discovered they had once again lost service, with limited access to emails, web browsing and secure services such as BBM.
The problems have caused some people to reconsider their use of RIM's platform, which relies on its own servers to encrypt communications and connect BlackBerry devices to the internet. Any time that RIM's servers suffer an outage like that which has hit it over the past two days, users of the systems can find reception of emails, texts and web browsing severely limited.
Any loss of customers in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region would be a serious problem for RIM, which has been losing market share in North America, traditionally one of its strongest markets, to phones running Google's Android mobile operating system and to Apple's iPhone.
In the US, RIM has lost 4.3 million users in the past year, according to calculations by Horace Dediu, of the independent consultancy Asymco. "[It] is now at about the same number of users it had in late 2009. This is in a market that has more than doubled," he noted.
"With only about 16.5 million US users and an average loss of half a million users per month, unless something drastic happens, RIM could lose its entire US user base by the end of next year."
RIM has been aiming to balance that by expansion in EMEA and regions such as India. But it is being badly squeezed on price there by more affordable Android phones. Its most recent quarterly results showed revenues down by 10% year on year, and profits crashing by 60%.
In the EMEA region, RIM has been showing growth in the number of handset sales over the past quarter, according to data from ComTech WorldPanel seen by the Guardian. This has largely balanced out losses of users in the US.
But the company has been under growing financial pressure this year as its investment in its PlayBook tablet has failed to ignite sales: it shipped just 500,000 in its first quarter on sale in spring, and only 200,000 in the succeeding quarter. In the US it is now offering $200 discounts, but those have not been extended to the UK. Sources with sight of UK retailing figures said that: "RIM partners have been told to keep shtum about the bad situation [of PlayBook sales]."
The Guardian's calculations suggest that RIM has up to 800,000 PlayBooks in its in-house inventory. The total inventory held by the company has swollen to the equivalent of almost 35% of revenues, suggesting a serious backlog of unsold equipment.
RIM's manager for the EMEA area was not available to comment. In a statement issued at 4pm BST on Tuesday, the company said: "Some users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, India, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina are experiencing messaging and browsing delays. We are working to restore normal service as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused."
Ontario-based RIM is the only smartphone platform which uses the system, devised in its early days so that it could offer secure connectivity for early users, and reduce the amount of bandwidth used by individual devices. Communications for North America are directed through its hub at its Ontario headquarters, while those for Europe, the Middle East and Africa run through its headquarters in Slough.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 11:31 pm on Oct. 11, 2011
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Sarge
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This is the second collapse of services this week, users in Europe, ME and Africa couldn't access internet, send emails or operate the BB messaging service. Again RIM has been slow forthcoming with an answer. Apparently only ordinary customers have been affected, corporate users who access online services via their own company's server had no issue. Fact is RIM has been resting on laurels for far too long, Apple and Google have surpassed them and made inroads in the corporate world. It doesn't look good and something has to give, not sure if Lazaridis or Balsillie go (or both) but they definitely need to come up with a new line up of handsets loaded with QNX. I hope they can survive, BB is a strong brand with loyal followers, we need diverse competition in the mobile industry.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:34 am on Oct. 12, 2011
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S M E G M A
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What does a BB that another smartphone cannot do, besides being able to show an updated picture and message for all contacts to see in the user's profile? That is more of a 'gossip thing' than anything else.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 2:19 am on Oct. 12, 2011
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DaffyDuck
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Ah, right, loss of Internet services and email capabilities are just a 'gossip thing' - oh, the expert speaks - 55555!
Outages now expanding to North America. I'd consider this a good upgrading opportunity for most customers... To iPhones 
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/10/12/blackberry.problems.now.nearly.on.all.continents/
BlackBerry failures persist, expand to North America
BlackBerry problems now nearly on all continents
RIM's BlackBerry Internet Service outage has not only persisted into its third full day as of Wednesday but has expanded into North America. Starting from overnight and escalating in the morning, those in Canada, Mexico, and the US are also seeing delays and sometimes complete service failures. RIM hasn't yet acknowledged the new reigion as being a problem.
EMEA area software VP Rory O'Neill was frank with the uncertainty of the situation in a chat on Wednesday. There was a point at which the system had been running well, he told paidContent, only for parts of the system to stop working as expected. RIM was trying to get servers talking correctly to each other again, he said, while hoping to keep every message that had gone through.
The issue wasn't consistent for everyone. O'Neill couldn't make commitments at this stage but said that some companies would get compensation based on service-level agreements for uptime that RIM wasn't going to meet.
The issues were triggered by a switch failure that was compounded by a backup that didn't properly kick in as expected. RIM has been trying to clear the backlog of messages triggered by the issue, although its not only persistent but growing problems suggests either that it's not catching up in time to avoid a new backlog from Eastern hemisphere users or that whatever triggered the initial failure is still ongoing.
RIM's outage is now one of its largest in recent memory and is now edging even closer to the iPhone 4S launch than before, leading to a possible temptation for those already looking to upgrade their phones. Commentary on Twitter has shifted gradually from frustrated patience to open anger and has led some to remark that they're now likely to switch to the iPhone, Android, or another platform. Because the BlackBerry system's centralized nature can cripple basic features like e-mail, instant messaging, and even certain apps or the web, those who depend on these for work have seen genuine damage to their business where iPhone and Android users, even if they see a service failure, will still have other core features active.
By Electronista Staff
Sent from my iPad
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 10:32 am on Oct. 12, 2011
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thailife
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Why Blackberry?
If you don't know, then you are really out of the loop... here is a little hint... why do people in sensitive positions use Balckberry's? Think... lawyers, accountatns, high level business people? Gee..... what feature does Blackberry have that makes these poeple use it over any other phone? Hummmmm....... I am trying to PIN the answer but I just don't know.....
Why do you think many people keep two phones? One Blackerry and of course and Iphone?
Now if you row a boat for a living, it really doesn't make any difference.....
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:47 am on Oct. 12, 2011
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DaffyDuck
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"Row a boat...." - 55555!
Blackberry had a tremendous "first mover" advantage, by being the first phone to provide any sort of effective mobile email platform, with the added benefit of a tight security model.
The caveat of this model is that *all* Blackberry traffic goes through their Canadian hub (doesn't matter if you have a BES server). To be honest, I find t incredulous that entities like the US government had no issues with that - then again, the recent virus infections of our drones do illustrate that the folks in charge aren't necessarily technologically savvy (drones running Windows -ugh)... But I digress...
iOS devices now offer govt grade encryption, and protection, and paired with an Exchange server provide a closed loop for confidentiality of emails - more so, in many ways, than what BBerry offers.
At the end of the way, the value of the BBerry services can be debated ad nauseam - the one thing I know is that if I depend on BBerry, and they fail to provide services over 3+ days, while my iPad gets all my messages, I know I'm switching.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:20 pm on Oct. 12, 2011
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cheapcharlie
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Just a question can you f*** a bb or an i-pod ?
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 3:25 pm on Oct. 12, 2011
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DaffyDuck
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Good question. Don't think you can f*** an iPod, but I do believe that you can get f***ed by a BBerry.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 8:13 pm on Oct. 12, 2011
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DaffyDuck
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Worse and worse!
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-13/blackberry-snags-threaten-u-s-customers-as-rim-apologizes.html
Blackberry Snags Threaten U.S. Customers as RIM Apologizes
October 13, 2011, 12:56 AM EDT
By Mark Lee
Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Research In Motion Ltd. apologized for disruptions to its Blackberry service that halted messaging for three days in Europe and may be spreading to the U.S., its largest market.
“Right now we’re letting you down,” Chief Information Officer Robin Bienfait said in a statement on the company’s website yesterday. The company is investigating reports of delays in the BlackBerry Messenger service in the U.S., Canada and Latin America, and Web browsing is temporarily unavailable in Europe, Middle East, India and Africa, she said.
RIM, which has built a reputation as a maker of secure and reliable e-mail devices, is struggling to stem declines in market share to touch-screen phones such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone that offer more consumer applications. The service disruptions began in areas that RIM is counting on for sales growth as revenue in North America drops.
The disruptions began in Europe and Asia early this week. BlackBerry users continue to have problems accessing data services as RIM works to clear the backlog of data, U.K.-based mobile-phone operator Vodafone Group Plc said yesterday.
“We are taking this very seriously and have people around the world working around the clock to address this situation,” Bienfait wrote. “We believe we understand why this happened and we are working to restore normal service levels in all markets as quickly as we can.”
RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, fell 2.2 percent to $23.88 at the close in New York yesterday. It has lost 59 percent this year.
Data Backlog
RIM routes its traffic through two main centers, in Waterloo for North America and in Slough, southern England, for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said Nick Dillon, an analyst at research firm Ovum in London.
That network concentration “has always been a risk to the service,” Dillon said. BlackBerry “is still the most robust e- mail system.”
RIM said the delays were caused by a core switch failure within its infrastructure. While the system is designed to transfer to a backup switch, that didn’t happen, it said. The result was a large backlog of data.
The company believes it has identified the root cause of the problem, though it will do further tests to make sure, David Yach, RIM’s chief technology officer of software, said yesterday on a conference call.
The problem is centered on its U.K. hub and service disruptions in North America were primarily caused by the backlog, not by technical faults there, Yach said.
Race Against Time
For RIM, facing investor demands for a shakeup in strategy and calls for new leadership, the interruption comes at an inopportune time. The company has to fix the problem quickly to avoid sacrificing customer data as the backlog grows too great and alienating clients, Malik Saadi, an analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media in Guildford, England, said yesterday.
“They cannot afford to have the problem for one more day, because the data backlog will just be massive,” Saadi said. “It’s really a race against the clock.”
Yach said the company has no plans to erase data to cut through the backlog.
Regions outside the RIM’s traditional stronghold of North America are accounting for an increasing share of its revenue and new subscribers. As RIM’s U.S. revenue dropped 50 percent last quarter to $1.11 billion, sales outside the U.S., U.K. and Canada jumped 38 percent to $2.33 billion.
Users in India, one of RIM’s growth markets, were among those experiencing disruptions. BlackBerry users in South Africa that use local carrier Vodacom Group Ltd. received a text message yesterday telling them about a disruption in Blackberry services.
Services were also disrupted in Brazil, Chile and Argentina this week.
--With assistance from Jonathan Browning in London, Hugo Miller and Sean B. Pasternak in Toronto, Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg and Adi Narayan in Mumbai. Editors: Anand Krishnamoorthy, Subramaniam Sharma
To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Lee in Hong Kong at wlee37@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:48 am on Oct. 13, 2011
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