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Feb. 11, 2008

Today, email service of BlackBerry smartphones experienced a severe outage, Research in Motion (RIM) told clients in an email message.

RIM support account manager Bryan Simpson said "this is an emergency notification regarding the current BlackBerry Infrastructure outage."

Simpson added that "the outage affected enterprise clients and users of the Americas network."

Officials at RIM weren't immediately available for comment and Simpson's email gave no estimate on when service might be restored or how many individuals could be affected.

Last April, a massive outage crashed BlackBerry service across North America, leaving thousands of users without access to wireless e-mail.

Executives, politicians, lawyers and other professionals rely on the BlackBerry for its ability to send secure e-mails.

Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said at the time that such incidents were "very rare" and the Waterloo, Ontario-based company was taking steps to prevent such an outage from happening again.

RIM is also adding more retail customers to its subscriber base, which in late 2007 reached about 12 million people globally.

Research in Motions' shares fell to $93.14 in after-hours electronic trading, from their regular-session close of $94.47 on the Nasdaq market.

On the Toronto Stock Exchange, the shares finished the day C$4.73 higher at C$94.62.

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Source: RIM.

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