Given the venom that people seem willing to spew at the iPhone, Apple & AT&T when things don’t go perfectly in cell phone land, I thought it appropriate to mention that the Blackberry service was having big time problems over the last few days. And remember last April when it was down altogether for an extended period of time?
Can you imagine the reaction from the iPhone dislikers? - See you all who don’t like the word haters - I am throwing you a bone here 
I can see it now - people threatening to never buy another Apple product, class action lawsuits, pundits predicting the demise of the iPhone and Apple as a company….
You get the point, and yes for those of you who are wondering; I am employing some good old-fashioned hyperbole here.
See, this is what happens when you have proprietary closed-source software on your network and require it to function day to day.
The BlackBerry Internet Service (which is what you use if you don’t have a server of your own) is basically a gigantic clearinghouse of e-mails owned, operated, and controled, by RIM.
The BlackBerry Enterprise Server (which is what you use if you have your own Exchange [AND ONLY EXCHANGE] Server) is also closed source, but in your building. It does, however, rely on the RIM data network (same as BIS).
In other words, for all the griping about how Apple is closed-source and secretive, my mail has never stopped working.
Why?
Because Pop3 is a standard and I don’t need to rely on anything I don’t have control over (except for G-Mail, but that’s no different for BB owners) to get my e-mail.
I accept the bone, and agree with you on this point. BlackBerry needs to get a handle on this or they’ll slowly go down the same rathole as Palm.
First, on point: I believe when RIM went down there was a bit of a discussion about lawsuits. Of course, there were all those other RIM lawsuits floating around, as well. Curiously, is there a “blackberry fanboy base” out there?
I too accept the bone, accept that the gripe hasn’t been the word, but the sentiment. But like I have written before, these sorts of over-blown statements are what makes good radio, and gets and keeps an audience. It is, after all, what Rush Limbaugh and that other “big fat idiot” Al Franken do, too.
Anyway–it does keep ME reading!