Back to basics for RIM's BlackBerry service

I was a BlackBerry user, a serious BlackBerry user. I wrote articles for a dedicated BlackBerry blog. I loved the BlackBerry Bold 9000, which was only surpassed in greasetness by the 9700. Bright screens, superb keyboards and rock solid messaging features were hallmarks of the BlackBerry Bold family.

But then something happened, I suffered through a BlackBerry service outage a couple of years ago. It lasted a number of hours and I hoped it was an isolated incident. However, other occasional outages followed and it started to seem like the BlackBerry service model of routing all messaging and Internet traffic through RIM’s servers might not be the best way forward.

The idea of having RIM in charge of how messaging and Internet service data gets to and from BlackBerry phones is appealing. There’s a promise of reliability and resiliency, which is why enterprises and individuals have relied upon their BlackBerry phones for so long. But when the recent outage of one BlackBerry infrastructure switch in the UK caused so much havoc to regional BlackBerry services in other countries, this promise gets called into question.

I still greatly admire the BlackBerry platform, there’s much to love. But with iPhone, Android and Windows Phone competitors offering such a rich app experience, RIM has to be beyond reproach in its core competency of providing a reliable and resilient messaging service.

Several commentators have called into question whether RIM had appropriate disaster recovery and contingency measures in place. I’m not going to go there because I’ve worked in that space and appreciate that even when good testing is performed regularly, unique events can occur that go unforeseen by even the most diligent testing teams. However the fact remains that the service failed, and it failed for an unacceptably long duration which has caused reputational damage to RIM.

When I came to Durham, I didn’t leave BlackBerry as a result of the outages that I experienced. I saw wider value in the services offered by a competing platform and chose to make that platform my ‘daily driver’. Following RIM’s unfortunate eperience with the PlayBook, the company is pinning its hopes on its upcoming QNX platform. I hope QNX is a great product, and I also hope it offers a unique new set of services or features that will drive further innovation across the market.

However, whether QNX succeeds or not, its development work and RIM's investment in new services may be in vain if the company fails to learn from last week’s service outage. The core BlackBerry messaging services must be beyond reproach for the platform to survive.