CHENNAI: In the aftermath of one of the worst service outages in its history, Blackberry-maker Research in Motion
(RIM) announced a slew of freebies on Monday to thank users for their
'patience' during the outage. Under the scheme, a selection of premium
apps worth more than $100 will be offered free of charge to each
subscriber worldwide. RIM's enterprise customers will also be offered
one month of free technical support.
RIM's move comes after a slew of operators abroad announced some form of compensation for their affected customers. While Vodafone announced that it was reviewing various options for its customers worldwide, Spain's Telefonica SA has already compensated monetarily to its customers as it is legally bound to pay its customers for every 24 hours of service disruption. United Arab Emirates' (UAE) largest operator Etisalat said it will offer users three days of free usage. All the South African operators have said they will issue service credits or offer free usage of their services for a limited period to make up for the disruption.
In spite of these global events, India, with its more than ten lakh Blackberry subscribers and which is a much bigger market than UAE's five lakh Blackberry users, hasn't seen a similar announcement for compensation from any of its operators till now. Airtel, which has a considerable number of Blackberry users in India with many of them locked to Airtel, made a terse statement saying it will "not comment on matters pertaining to partner relationships", RIM being the partner here.
A spokesperson from Vodafone said that the company was reviewing the case on a country basis and its future actions will depend on the "number of registrations and the circumstance in which the problem occurred" in the particular region and will comply with any legislation. Aircel said that it has very few Blackberry subscribers and most of them are not locked to the company so they aren't planning anything on the lines of compensation as of now. Efforts to reach Reliance Communications didn't result in a response at the time of going to press.
RIM's move comes after a slew of operators abroad announced some form of compensation for their affected customers. While Vodafone announced that it was reviewing various options for its customers worldwide, Spain's Telefonica SA has already compensated monetarily to its customers as it is legally bound to pay its customers for every 24 hours of service disruption. United Arab Emirates' (UAE) largest operator Etisalat said it will offer users three days of free usage. All the South African operators have said they will issue service credits or offer free usage of their services for a limited period to make up for the disruption.
In spite of these global events, India, with its more than ten lakh Blackberry subscribers and which is a much bigger market than UAE's five lakh Blackberry users, hasn't seen a similar announcement for compensation from any of its operators till now. Airtel, which has a considerable number of Blackberry users in India with many of them locked to Airtel, made a terse statement saying it will "not comment on matters pertaining to partner relationships", RIM being the partner here.
A spokesperson from Vodafone said that the company was reviewing the case on a country basis and its future actions will depend on the "number of registrations and the circumstance in which the problem occurred" in the particular region and will comply with any legislation. Aircel said that it has very few Blackberry subscribers and most of them are not locked to the company so they aren't planning anything on the lines of compensation as of now. Efforts to reach Reliance Communications didn't result in a response at the time of going to press.
India was one of the most
affected countries where the disruption lasted for around three days,
along with Europe, the Middle East and Africa, compared to one and a
half days in Latin America and Canada, and one day in the United States,
last week. And with RIM growing faster in emerging countries than
established markets like US, where it is losing ground to iOS and
Android, India with its huge potential market acquires further
importance. As per the recent numbers, while RIM's US revenue dropped
50% last quarter to $1.11 billion, sales outside the US, UK and Canada
jumped 38% to $2.33 billion.
Corporate customers, the primary segment for RIM in India, were the ones who suffered the maximum. And majority of these corporate handsets are locked to operators. Now, some operators are trying to assuage them by dealing with them directly. An executive from a leading manufacturing company in India said that after the outage, which affected the company's senior management, "Vodafone gave the company three Blackberry handsets for free as compensation". The company has a global tie up with Vodafone through which they source locked Blackberries for all their top and middle management.
"Unlike other regions, where there was a forewarning that data was overflowing, there was no information for users in India. That caught me unawares," `Subbu` Subramaniam, CEO of MCap Advisors, a private equity fund said.
RIM is remaining tight-lipped about its future course of action. "RIM is looking at all ways including working closely with carriers to deal with this issue," said a company official. "We will notify about our further announcements as and when they happen." RIM's freebies will start rolling out on Wednesday and users have time till December 31 to download these premium apps.
Corporate customers, the primary segment for RIM in India, were the ones who suffered the maximum. And majority of these corporate handsets are locked to operators. Now, some operators are trying to assuage them by dealing with them directly. An executive from a leading manufacturing company in India said that after the outage, which affected the company's senior management, "Vodafone gave the company three Blackberry handsets for free as compensation". The company has a global tie up with Vodafone through which they source locked Blackberries for all their top and middle management.
"Unlike other regions, where there was a forewarning that data was overflowing, there was no information for users in India. That caught me unawares," `Subbu` Subramaniam, CEO of MCap Advisors, a private equity fund said.
RIM is remaining tight-lipped about its future course of action. "RIM is looking at all ways including working closely with carriers to deal with this issue," said a company official. "We will notify about our further announcements as and when they happen." RIM's freebies will start rolling out on Wednesday and users have time till December 31 to download these premium apps.
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