Research In Motion Offers Free Premium Apps To Customers Following Service Interruptions

By Mauricio

Last week I let you know about a BlackBerry Internet Service outage that hit Europe, the Middle East and Africa and then spread to the United States and Canada. RIM had a few press conferences after the outages to explain the situation and what was being done to resolve the issues. At the time they made it clear they had no plans to compensate BlackBerry users for their troubles but it looks like they’ve changed their mind. Beginning October 19th through December 31st, more than $100 worth of apps will be offered for free to BlackBerry subscribers including:

• SIMS 3 – Electronic Arts
• Bejeweled – Electronic Arts
• N.O.V.A. – Gameloft
• Texas Hold’em Poker 2 – Gameloft
• Bubble Bash 2 – Gameloft
• Photo Editor Ultimate – Ice Cold Apps
• DriveSafe.ly Pro – iSpeech.org
• iSpeech Translator Pro – iSpeech.org
• Drive Safe.ly Enterprise – iSpeech.org
• Nobex Radio™ Premium – Nobex
• Shazam Encore – Shazam
• Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant – Vlingo

RIM will also offer one month of free Technical Support for Enterprise customers. Stay tuned for more info and for when the free premium apps are made available, or check out the full press release below!

Press Release

Waterloo, ON – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) announced today that a selection of premium apps worth a total value of more than US $100 will be offered free of charge to subscribers as an expression of appreciation for their patience during the recent service disruptions. The apps will be made available to customers over the coming weeks on BlackBerry® App World™ and will continue to be available until December 31, 2011.*

“Our global network supports the communications needs of more than 70 million customers,” said RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. “We truly appreciate and value our relationship with our customers.  We’ve worked hard to earn their trust over the past 12 years, and we’re committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect, today and in the future.”

The complete selection of premium apps will become available to download at BlackBerry App World over a period of four weeks beginning Wednesday, October 19th.  The selections over this period will include the following (with more to come):

• SIMS 3 – Electronic Arts
• Bejeweled – Electronic Arts
• N.O.V.A. – Gameloft
• Texas Hold’em Poker 2 – Gameloft
• Bubble Bash 2 – Gameloft
• Photo Editor Ultimate – Ice Cold Apps
• DriveSafe.ly Pro – iSpeech.org
• iSpeech Translator Pro – iSpeech.org
• Drive Safe.ly Enterprise – iSpeech.org
• Nobex Radio™ Premium – Nobex
• Shazam Encore – Shazam
• Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant – Vlingo

RIM’s enterprise customers will also be offered one month of free Technical Support.  Current customers will be offered a complimentary one month extension of their existing Technical Support contract, and customers who do not currently have a Technical Support contract will be offered a one month trial of RIM’s BlackBerry Technical Support Services – Enhanced Support, free of charge.  Additional details about the program and information about how to register will be available at www.blackberry.com/enterpriseoffer.

“We are grateful to our loyal BlackBerry customers for their patience,” added Lazaridis. “We have apologized to our customers and we will work tirelessly to restore their confidence.  We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.”

* Please note that the availability of this offer will depend on the type of device, operating system version, access to BlackBerry App World and local conditions and/or restrictions.