I’m Sorry: BlackBerry Gives Away Apps

BlackBerry parent company Research In Motion is offering free premium apps worth over US$100 to disgruntled BlackBerry Customers.

RIM is trying to make it up to its customers, after they suffered a 3 day outage that affected internet, email and BlackBerry Messenger.

RIM’s premiums app selection would be available for download from BlackBerrys app world come October 19th, with the offer lasting for four weeks.

Enterprise customers are being appeased with one month of free technical support, according to SMH reports.

The outage stemmed from a faulty core switch in Slough, England, and affected internet, email and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for tens of millions of users scattered across five continents. Although RIM’s promotion will cost the company, it’s unknown whether the gesture is recognised as an acceptable apology.

Analysts predict the network blackout has damaged BlackBerry’s reputation and will result in less corporate customers joining, and many leaving.

“We’ve worked hard to earn their [customers’] trust over the past 12 years and we’re committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect,” RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said in a statement.

“We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.”

Amongst the free apps are Bejeweled and the music ID service Shazam.

Francisco Jeronimo at the IDC believed the decision was a clever move on BlackBerry’s part, subtly introducing the BlackBerry app world to customers.

For RIM, this is an interesting way to attract users to the App World and incentivise them to search and download apps,” he said. “What RIM probably did was an agreement with developers and is not charging the percentage on revenues they keep when a user buys an app.”

“More important than the offer itself, is that RIM is showing goodwill and being humble. They recognised the problem, apologised and now they are compensating their users.”