RIM offering $100 worth of free premium apps after global outage

 

by Andrew Moran (Guest contributor/Digital Journalist)

Following the major service disruptions that affected BlackBerry users around the world last week, Research In Motion has announced that it is giving away $100 worth of free premium apps to its customers as an apology.

Research In Motion announced in a press release Monday morning that it is compensating its customers with a selection of free premium apps that are worth $100. This offer, which will be available Wednesday until Dec. 31, 2011, was issued as a gift of appreciation for their service and as an apology for last week’s service disruptions.

One of the worst global outages in RIM’s history could cost the Canadian BlackBerry-maker approximately more than $100 million in lost revenues, according to a report from theMontreal Gazette.

There were disruptions and delays in service for three days in Africa, Europe, India and the Middle East, 1.5 days in Latin America and Canada and one day in the United States.Starting Wednesday, a dozen or so apps will be made available to their customers – though, that the availability of the apps will depend on the type of device, access to BlackBerry app world, operating system version and local conditions.

“Our global network supports the communications needs of more than 70 million customers,” said Mike Lazardis, RIM Co-CEO, in the press release. “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.”

He added that the company has apologized and will attempt “to restore their confidence.” Lazardis assured his customers that they are making sure that this will not happen again.

The complete selection of available apps will be rolled out within the next four weeks. The first selections include the following:

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

This article was previously published on Digital Journal [Link]

Photo courtesy of arrayexception