The day the BIS died

Apple king Steve Jobs died this month and the tech world cried. Apple-users or not, gadget-lovers mourned his passing and wondered what the tech world would become without him.

Apple competition BlackBerry (BB) died this week... and everyone is just confused. BB-users or not, one has to wonder if this is the beginning of the end for BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS).

Tell us RIM, why won't it wake up? What if BIS dies forever? The consequence would be unthinkable.

Farzana Rasool, IT in Government Editor, ITWeb

The pandemic that broke BIS swept through Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It brought terror and fear to all who depend on that little flashing red light to distract them from anything important every few minutes.

BB creator Research In Motion (RIM) apologised for any inconvenience caused and said it was working to resolve the issue, but wouldn't say what that issue was. The service has been up and down ever since Monday and subscribers are frustrated.

BlackBerry users are unable to browse the Web, use their instant messaging or access Internet services.

Tell us RIM, why won't it wake up? What if BIS dies forever? The consequence would be unthinkable. Imagine having to start playing PC games again to hide from your work for a few minutes? Or sending SMSes again? Oh the horror!

And perhaps this is exactly the line of thought RIM wants us to take?

Alright, but seriously, this is a major inconvenience. What made it worse was that RIM let the confusion reign.

By not explaining the problem and telling us just what went wrong to make BB users live pinglessly for more than a day, it leaves us to think the worst, that our little smiley hug emoticons are never coming back.

Not cool RIM, not cool. We're adults, you can tell us.

Please, just tell us what went wrong. We promise we won't eat you alive, too slowly. Is this the beginning of the end? Will BIS be constantly in and out of ICU? Do we need to go back to MXit?

RIM, please understand, if you stop bottling it all up inside and talk to us about it, maybe we'll understand you better and stop wanting to hit you over the head with a Nokia 3310.

Facebook and Twitter streams went crazy with questions about what was happening to BIS.

Everyone wanted to know why they were isolated from the world all of a sudden, why their portal into the virtual world had disappeared.

And that's when the world went nuts.

When BIS came up for that brief period between its two deaths this week, the hoax broadcasts began.

People with very little to do and too much time on their hands claimed to be RIM and instructed everyone to forward a broadcast message on BBM to all contacts or risk being cut off from the BIS they're paying for forever.

The same threat was made if people didn't change their profile pictures or download new versions of the BBM application.

The sad part is that so many listened, desperate not to be cut off from the world.

At trying times like these, people also come up with home remedies for fixing sick BBs. One will hear ludicrous suggestions for healing an ailing BB ranging from the broadcast messages that you must forward to all contacts, to placing the battery's charging pins on your tongue, to shaking the phone like you would a chocolate Super M.

And this, RIM, is why you need to say something. Your silence just lets all the crazies out.

This is the age of communication, social networking and direct consumer relations in virtual customer service queues, so RIM has no excuse not to talk.

It aids the above communication through BB and BIS and now cuts itself off? Irony, anyone?

As RIM stands around with a dumbfounded expression on its face and its mouth open like a goldfish, I can't help but doubt my “Pinky and the Brain” theory.

This is where I see Apple as Brain who has the genius plan to take over the world, but is still too far above the reach of the poor masses for its plan to seem sane.

BB is Pinky, going along for the ride yet popping out some genius ideas of its own that are so smart they become a good match against Brain's class and confidence.

But the whole goldfish look loses you so many points, RIM.

Secretly, I thought BB was going to push SA's and Africa's great leap into the smartphone era, once prices dropped a whole lot more, of course.

I thought this simply because the cost of communication and the price of Internet access are reduced so greatly with BIS and BBM.

But the confusion I saw this week when BIS died and was then resuscitated and then died again and stayed dead, leaves me disheartened.

The worst part is that, as I write this, my instant messages are still not delivering and my dear BB is still deathly quiet.

I'll say it again: the tech world has taken hard knocks this year. What's next, iPad apps turning into little demons that pull people's hair? Yes, this is on that scale.