The response by Research In Motion to the recent technical glitch that affected millions of users of its BlackBerry devices was, in a word, appalling. While the explanation of what went wrong was clear enough, the problem was that it was delivered roughly 48 hours after the meltdown occurred.
In the hours after the BlackBerry lights went out, nary a word could be found on RIM’s Web site about what was going on. Information was so hard to come by that most users were left to simply guess at what had gone wrong and wonder where the problem had originated from.
While no one was has come to expect a heartfelt apology from a business as big as RIM when something of this magnitude goes wrong, a little bit more empathy — in the form of a timelier explanation — would have been appreciated by most. Instead, what came through was a sense of arrogance on RIM’s part.
Things like this tend to happen when a company is as successful as it has been over the past few years, watching as it has its immensely popular wireless platform turn a huge chunk of the world’s professional population into e-mail-snorting CrackBerry addicts.
It’s painful to say, but such blas
