BlackBerry Addicts Fear Shutdown
Scott Mitchell Rosenberg will not stay at a certain upscale New York hotel, no matter what you say to persuade him. He remembers vividly the moment when, traveling on business, he realized that his BlackBerry didn't get service in the hotel. That's OK, thought Rosenberg, chairman of Los Angeles-based Platinum Studios -- he unsheathed a second BlackBerry, with a different cellular carrier, which he keeps on his belt for such emergencies.
It didn't work either.
"I walked through the halls holding both of them, looking for (reception) bars," he remembers. "Neither of them worked anywhere in the hotel." Rosenberg, who has charted Los Angeles freeways and byways, restaurants and movie theaters in terms of which BlackBerry works best where, buys the devices for all his employees and says his organization relies heavily on their e-mail and scheduling functions. If somebody doesn't want a BlackBerry, they're in the wrong company, he says. "When I first give an employee the BlackBerry, some people find it annoying. But then they get addicted."
Now Rosenberg and about 4.3 million others are grappling with the possibility of going through "CrackBerry" withdrawal en masse in light of the U.S. Supreme Court refusing last week to intervene on an injunction stemming from a patent dispute facing Research in Motion, which manufactures BlackBerry devices. RIM says it has a plan to continue service even if forced to stop using the current technology, but it is sketchy on details. Among BlackBerry aficionados and addicts, tension is high.
Elsewhere, BlackBerry foes celebrate. At the technology-news Web site Digg.com, users write: "Shouldn't this read: 'CRACK-Berry Shutdown ordered, Millions of Drivers Rejoice??" and "They make people look self-important and busy" and "Die Blackberry! Die!"
But many BlackBerry users will tell you this is life or death. In a few cases, they're not kidding. At MedStar Health, a nonprofit that runs seven hospitals in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., about 460 executives and managers use BlackBerrys to keep in touch, says Sameer Bade, assistant vice president. "During some recent communication outages, BlackBerrys were the only way we could communicate with critical service employees," Bade says.
It didn't work either.
"I walked through the halls holding both of them, looking for (reception) bars," he remembers. "Neither of them worked anywhere in the hotel." Rosenberg, who has charted Los Angeles freeways and byways, restaurants and movie theaters in terms of which BlackBerry works best where, buys the devices for all his employees and says his organization relies heavily on their e-mail and scheduling functions. If somebody doesn't want a BlackBerry, they're in the wrong company, he says. "When I first give an employee the BlackBerry, some people find it annoying. But then they get addicted."
Now Rosenberg and about 4.3 million others are grappling with the possibility of going through "CrackBerry" withdrawal en masse in light of the U.S. Supreme Court refusing last week to intervene on an injunction stemming from a patent dispute facing Research in Motion, which manufactures BlackBerry devices. RIM says it has a plan to continue service even if forced to stop using the current technology, but it is sketchy on details. Among BlackBerry aficionados and addicts, tension is high.
Elsewhere, BlackBerry foes celebrate. At the technology-news Web site Digg.com, users write: "Shouldn't this read: 'CRACK-Berry Shutdown ordered, Millions of Drivers Rejoice??" and "They make people look self-important and busy" and "Die Blackberry! Die!"
But many BlackBerry users will tell you this is life or death. In a few cases, they're not kidding. At MedStar Health, a nonprofit that runs seven hospitals in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., about 460 executives and managers use BlackBerrys to keep in touch, says Sameer Bade, assistant vice president. "During some recent communication outages, BlackBerrys were the only way we could communicate with critical service employees," Bade says.
posted by Newsshout at 8:32 AM
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