BlackBerry outrage hits Europe, Africa and Middle East

PanARMENIAN.Net - Research in Motion confirmed that Vodafone customers in Europe, Africa and the Middle East were experiencing some “service issues” Friday, Jan 11 morning. In a message posted to the company’s British Twitter account, RIM indicated that it was working with the carrier to get full service restored.

But it is bad timing for Research in Motion as it races toward the much-delayed launch of its latest operating system, BB10, at the end of the month. The launch, seen as the company’s last chance to mount a comeback, is set for Jan. 30. After many quarters of declining subscriber growth, RIM reported its first subscriber loss in December.

The company has also been slowly recovering from a sharp drop in its stock price after it announced that it would stop charging regular customers lucrative service fees, to lower the cost of owning a BlackBerry and bring prices more in line with phones running Apple’s iOS of Google’s Android mobile operating system. Service fees made up 36 percent, or about $980 million of the company’s revenue in its last reported quarter, Washington Post reported.