Ecstatic with Blackberry’s exclusive BBM feature? Initially, the idea was appealing. However, recently on Twitter angry users reported renewed issues with their handsets and an inability to send messages and email, which affected Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. RIM, the company in which assembles Blackberrys, claims the problem is due to core and back-up switch failures. Despite apologizing for the inconvenience, users continue to be frustrated as RIM states that they are working to resolve an issue currently impacting some BlackBerry subscribers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and that they are investigating, but without an estimated time frame of when the operating system will be resolved.

Blackberry’s unique feature of BBM indeed attracts many users, but the recent scandal undoubtedly affected the market for current and potential customers. Furthermore, although the Blackberry is considerably favored, the handset faces unyielding competition from the iPhone and Android phones. Without the distinct feature of BBM in Blackberrys, I believe the Blackberry will lose popularity as both the other two operating systems offer more updated apps. Moreover, iPhones running on the iOS 5 system are offered iMessage, which is comparable to BBM on Blackberrys.