Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) had a bad week and a weekend to match, with stock plummeting to a nine-year low on Friday and services interrupted on three continents over the weekend.
And problems persist for some customers. A statement from RIM reads:
"We experienced a service issue which may have affected some of our customers in certain parts of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
"Some minor issues relating to browsing and BlackBerry Messenger may still persist, but all other services are operating as normal. We apologise to any customers in these regions who may have been inconvenienced."
This is the second major outage for Blackberry users, the first occurring in October of last year and leading to customer compensation and even a lawsuit.
A bad end to a worse week
The Blackberry service outage couldn't have come at a worse time, as RIM's Nasdaq price closed down 19 percent at $7.39.
That nine-year low for the smartphone maker has been attributed to the announcement that the transition to the Blackberry 10 OS will not occur until 2013.
But last week's decline wasn't an isolated occurrence; RIM's shares have fallen 70 percent overall in the last year, and the Blackberry company continues to amass losses.
RIM recently announced plans to cut enough jobs to save $1 billion before the end of the year, with one analyst estimating that could mean as many as 6,000 employees getting the axe.
Things are looking up?
But RIM remains optimistic about the future, particularly once the transition to the new Blackberry 10 OS is complete.
The company promised app developers in May that any Blackberry 10 apps of a certain quality would make $10,000 in the first year. Failing that, RIM will pay up the difference.
RIM reported last week that an increasingly competitive market, declining handset sales, the Blackberry 10 delay, pressure to reduce monthly infrastructure access fees, and continued efforts to sell Blackberry 7 devices will make the next several quarters challenging.
"The company expects to report an operating loss in the second quarter of fiscal 2013," the report read, "as RIM continues to invest in marketing programs and continues to work through the transition to BlackBerry 10."
Blackberry services are back to normal
A RIM representative has contacted TechRadar with an amended version of the company's above statement.
"On June 30, we experienced a service issue which may have affected some of our customers in certain parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India," the new statement reads.
"This issue is now fully resolved and all services are operating as normal. We apologise to any customers in these regions who may have been inconvenienced."
Via BusinessTech
