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29 March 2024

BlackBerry experiences brief outage

A customer holds a BlackBerry handset inside a mobile selling shop. (REUTERS)

Published
By Agencies

If you couldn't access your email on your BlackBerry this morning, you weren't alone. RIM's BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) experienced a brief outage early Saturday.

"BIS email delivery was delayed this morning in (North America) due to system maintenance," RIM tweeted from @BlackBerry, its official Twitter account. "Service is now being restored. We apologize for any inconvenience."

The outage was also confirmed by Verizon Wireless.

"This morning's RIM email issue 100% over," @VerizonWireless tweeted. "All BlackBerry users on all wireless companies should be back up. Apologies!

Additionally, AT&T mentioned the issue on its Twitter feed.

BlackBerry is still the leading mobile operating system in the U.S. with 33.5 percent of the market share. However, the most recent numbers show a decline in RIM's lead. According to numbers gathered in November, BlackBerry dropped 4.1 percent from the 37.6 percent share that it snagged in August.

This decline could be attributed to the growth of Google's Android platform, which recently leapfrogged Apple to become the number two mobile platform in the states. Android and iOS are in a close race, however. Google's os leads with a 26 percent share, and Apple isn't far behind with 25 percent of the market.

While BlackBerry has faltered, both Google and Apple have strengthened their foothold. Android gained 6.4 percent of the mobile platform market and Apple added 0.8 percent to its share.

RIM also continues to face problems with India, with the government threatening to cut off BlackBerry service in the country if RIM does not hand over access to encrypted data traveling over the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). While the two parties have reached a solution for BIS, no solution has been reached for BES.