BlackBerry uproar at Wall St
Friday, April 20, 2007
USERS of the hand-held BlackBerry email device, a communications lifeline for movers and shakers from the White House to Wall Street, endured hours of disrupted service before the system was restored on Wednesday.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto opened a morning briefing with reporters by apologising for missed emails.
"I think we're 14 hours into no BlackBerrys. So you can imagine how things are over there," he said.
At the US Capitol, where lawmakers and staffers rely on the BlackBerry to keep plugged into shifting legislative and political battles, the outage was crippling.
"I felt like my left arm had been amputated," said Joe Shoemaker who works as a communications director for Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois.
Research In Motion Ltd, the Canadian maker of the pocket-sized gadget, said it was looking into what caused the disruption that began Tuesday night and affected users in North America.
RIM has about eight million subscribers who use various models of its BlackBerry, which has become a staple with lawyers, politicians, company executives and other professionals. The United States is its biggest market.
Without giving details, RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, said email service was "delayed or intermittent" but phone calls were not disrupted.
One Wall Street analyst said she kept hitting her BlackBerry's version of a "refresh" button, not believing that the system could fail.
"I have a client that would have paid me with an immediate trade but they couldn't reach their trader because BlackBerry service was down," she said.
In the real estate industry, top brokers are more likely to "BlackBerry" a client or colleague than call by cell phone.
"If you don't respond to somebody via BlackBerry within an hour, or an hour and a half, you're ignoring them and risk losing their business," said Darren Sukenik, executive vice president of luxury sales at Prudential Douglas Elliman.
Problems with BlackBerry service forced users to cope without on-the-go email access, but some also saw a silver lining free time to relax.
"I was trying to conduct business with my BlackBerry last evening, but once I realised it didn't work I could sit down and enjoy the Rangers game and the Mets game," said William Hickey, co-head of investment banking at Sandler O'Neill & Partners in New York.
But the glitch raised questions for users and investors.
The outage illustrates "a technical issue that the company does need to deal with", said Carmi Levy, a senior research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group. RIM added 1.02 million BlackBerry subscribers in the fourth quarter alone, and expects to add another 1.125 million to 1.15 million in the quarter to June 2, last year.
Nick Agostino, an analyst at Research Capital in Toronto, said naysayers were "just overblowing the whole situation" citing RIM's strong track record of stable service. He noted that European service was not affected.
RIM's shares initially fell on news of the outage. RIM said this month it was facing a formal investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over historical stock-option grants. The SEC earlier had been conducting an informal inquiry.Reuters
White House spokesman Tony Fratto opened a morning briefing with reporters by apologising for missed emails.
"I think we're 14 hours into no BlackBerrys. So you can imagine how things are over there," he said.
At the US Capitol, where lawmakers and staffers rely on the BlackBerry to keep plugged into shifting legislative and political battles, the outage was crippling.
"I felt like my left arm had been amputated," said Joe Shoemaker who works as a communications director for Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois.
Research In Motion Ltd, the Canadian maker of the pocket-sized gadget, said it was looking into what caused the disruption that began Tuesday night and affected users in North America.
RIM has about eight million subscribers who use various models of its BlackBerry, which has become a staple with lawyers, politicians, company executives and other professionals. The United States is its biggest market.
Without giving details, RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, said email service was "delayed or intermittent" but phone calls were not disrupted.
One Wall Street analyst said she kept hitting her BlackBerry's version of a "refresh" button, not believing that the system could fail.
"I have a client that would have paid me with an immediate trade but they couldn't reach their trader because BlackBerry service was down," she said.
In the real estate industry, top brokers are more likely to "BlackBerry" a client or colleague than call by cell phone.
"If you don't respond to somebody via BlackBerry within an hour, or an hour and a half, you're ignoring them and risk losing their business," said Darren Sukenik, executive vice president of luxury sales at Prudential Douglas Elliman.
Problems with BlackBerry service forced users to cope without on-the-go email access, but some also saw a silver lining free time to relax.
"I was trying to conduct business with my BlackBerry last evening, but once I realised it didn't work I could sit down and enjoy the Rangers game and the Mets game," said William Hickey, co-head of investment banking at Sandler O'Neill & Partners in New York.
But the glitch raised questions for users and investors.
The outage illustrates "a technical issue that the company does need to deal with", said Carmi Levy, a senior research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group. RIM added 1.02 million BlackBerry subscribers in the fourth quarter alone, and expects to add another 1.125 million to 1.15 million in the quarter to June 2, last year.
Nick Agostino, an analyst at Research Capital in Toronto, said naysayers were "just overblowing the whole situation" citing RIM's strong track record of stable service. He noted that European service was not affected.
RIM's shares initially fell on news of the outage. RIM said this month it was facing a formal investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over historical stock-option grants. The SEC earlier had been conducting an informal inquiry.Reuters
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