Blackberry Offers Free Apps in Apology. Will You Forgive RIM?

In result to last week’s Blackberry outtage, RIM profusely apologized for the issues they came up with. In return, they are offering $100 in free applications to their users. Will that be enough for Blackberry users to continue with the phone?

Last week, Blackberry had a nation-wide email and Internet services outtage that lasted 3 days. A “network failure” was to blame for this outage. ZDNet is reporting that RIM has lost $350 million for that outtage.

Today, RIM put out a press release. CEO Mike Lazaridis made a public apology and then announced they will be giving customers $100 in applications as compensation.

“Our global network supports the communications needs of more than 70 million customers,” said RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. “We truly appreciate and value our relationship with our customers. We’ve worked hard to earn their trust over the past 12 years, and we’re committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect, today and in the future.”

The list of applications are:

SIMS 3 – Electronic Arts
Bejeweled – Electronic Arts
N.O.V.A. – Gameloft
Texas Hold’em Poker 2 – Gameloft
Bubble Bash 2 – Gameloft
Photo Editor Ultimate – Ice Cold Apps
DriveSafe.ly Pro – iSpeech.org
iSpeech Translator Pro – iSpeech.org
Drive Safe.ly Enterprise – iSpeech.org
Nobex Radio™ Premium – Nobex
Shazam Encore – Shazam
Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant – Vlingo

Are Free applications enough to customers? What if I already bought all of these applications already? Will I get a refund?

These Applications are only $35

Apparently, these 12 applications are $8.33 each? Well, no – Each application is probably on average $2.99 each. I even thought a couple of those applications were free already.

You have 4 weeks to download all of these titles between October 19th and November 16h (4 weeks). But 12 applications at $2.99 each is only $35.

RIM states other applications will become available as they go, but this is not compensation. What is compensation? Maybe a FREE MONTH of service?

Whether or not it will keep customers remains to be seen. But it is important to call your carrier and complain. This is not the first time a phone had a major outage (Remember in October 10, 2009, Microsoft Sidekick had a outage that deleted user data). But it’s all about how customers can be reimbursed for the issue.

One thought on “Blackberry Offers Free Apps in Apology. Will You Forgive RIM?”

Bob Rhode says:
October 18, 2011 at 9:11 pm
I’ll take the freebees, BUT, I use my blackberry every day (calls, email, facebook, web, etc…) and I did not have any outage at all, nor did any other family members. I do not, nor does any of my family members (4 in all) use blackberry messenger. So? I will keep mine, in fact I will upgrade to the new bold next month.

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