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Dec. 18, 2009

The majority of BlackBerry users in North America faced delays in receiving e-mail on their devices yesterday.

Research In Motion (RIM) said late Thursday that its network support people were working to solve the problem.

RIM is the company that makes the BlackBerry and that supports all email communications and Internet infrastructure to and from all its units.

The company said BlackBerry users could still make phone calls, browse the Internet and send and receive text messages, however.

RIM didn't immediately say how many users were affected. A voice mail left to a company spokesperson was not returned at press time.

In February 2008, an upgrade to the wireless system caused more than a three-hour service disruption in email service.

Then, less than seven weeks later, a minor software upgrade crashed the whole system. A smaller disruption in September of the same year also was caused by a software problem that took another few hours to repair.

After initially focusing on corporate customers, RIM has expanded its reach into the consumer market in recent years. The BlackBerry devices face increased competition from devices such as Apple's iPhone, the Palm Pre and the Motorola Droid.

RIM's system is reliable on most days, but its centralized structure means that any problems can affect millions of BalckBerry users almost at any point in time.

Research In Motion yesterday reported third quarter results for the three months ended November 28, 2009 (all figures in U.S. dollars and U.S. GAAP, except where indicated). Revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2010 was $3.92 billion, up 11 percent from $3.53 billion in the previous quarter and up 41 percent from $2.78 billion in the same quarter of last year.

The revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 82 percent for devices, 14 percent for service, 2 percent for software and 2 percent for other revenue.

During the quarter, RIM shipped approximately 10.1 million devices, including its 75 millionth BlackBerry smartphone.

Approximately 4.4 million net new BlackBerry® subscriber accounts were added in the quarter. At the end of the quarter, the total BlackBerry subscriber account base was approximately 36 million.

"We are pleased to report record shipments of more than 10 million BlackBerry smartphones during the third quarter with higher than expected revenue, earnings and subscriber growth," said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion.

"RIM is experiencing a great start to the holiday buying season and the strong Q3 results and Q4 outlook clearly reflect the strength of our diversified product portfolio as well as the success of our efforts to expand into broader customer segments and new geographies while maintaining our strong position in North America," added Balsillie.

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Source: Research In Motion.