With Apologies, Officials Say BlackBerry Service Is Restored

After a week of problems that plagued BlackBerry service across five continents, Research in Motion on Thursday said it had resolved technical issues and that service had begun returning to normal.

But while the company’s two chief executives, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, held a news conference to apologize for the failure and explain its cause, they deflected questions about compensating BlackBerry users for the loss of a service that many view as vital.

“Our focus has been 100 percent on getting systems up and running,” Mr. Balsillie said, adding that the company would now start looking at ways to placate customers.

As other executives at the Waterloo, Ontario, company had indicated earlier, the problem started when a core switch, a high-volume variation of a router, failed within the unique network that RIM operates to manage BlackBerry data. That immediately caused a shutdown in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

The problem became global, however, as data continued to pour into the BlackBerry network. Similar to Lucille Ball facing a stream of candies rushing down an assembly line, the entire network was eventually overwhelmed by the accumulating data.

The large data backlog meant that some users still encountered problems after the switch was successfully repaired on Thursday morning.

It was the longest and most extensive disruption of BlackBerry service in the 12 years that the device has been on the market.

The executives said that the switch used equipment from several manufacturers, which they would not identify, and that its failure was not preceded by any substantial changes to the network’s hardware or software.

“I want to apologize to all the BlackBerry users we let down,” said Mr. Lazaridis. “Our inability to quickly fix this has been frustrating.”

BlackBerry owners were not the only people frustrated by the situation. Wireless carriers who sell the devices and the services on them have no control over RIM’s network, but were hit by customer complaints.

Mr. Balsillie, however, said that he had spoken with the chief executives of several telecommunications companies and found them, without exception, to be sympathetic rather than upset.

“People understand the complexity of these systems and when something like this happens everyone pulls together,” Mr. Balsillie said.

The problem came at a trying time for the company. It faces a slow-selling tablet computer and it has been slow to produce a new line of phones that will compete with those from Apple or those running Google’s Android software. The company is losing market share as its customers and businesses become more comfortable with rival smartphones inside business.

Because there are about 70 million users worldwide, any compensation to customers could be relatively costly for RIM, which has failed to meet recent financial targets.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 13, 2011

An earlier version of this article misidentified the market that RIM had a 46 percent share of in 2008, according to IDC, as the market for mobile devices.

nyTimes