RIM founder Mike Lazaridis apologises for outage in web video

Research in Motion founder Mike Lazaridis has been forced to take to the web to personally apologise for the outages affecting users across the globe this week.

He said it's too early to say if the issue has been completely fixed, but added that normal service levels are just around the corner for EMEA.

"Since launching BlackBerry in 1999, it's been my goal to provide reliable, real time communications around the world," he said. "We did not deliver on that goal this week. Not even close. You expect better from us and I expect better from us."

Lazaridis, however, did warn that there would be "some instability" as the problem was resolved.

There was also a rare admission of failure on the part of RIM, in the sluggish way it initially communicated with its customers.

Many took to Twitter in the early days of the outage to express their anger not only at being left without a business critical service, but also for being given no information on what was happening and what was being done by RIM to fix it.

"We know that you want to hear more from us, and we're working to update you more frequently to update you through our websites and social media channels as we gather more information," he said.

13 Oct 2011