BlackBerry Service Improving, But Perhaps Too Late

RIM announced last night that service levels are improving across the world, but that the there are still delays and quality problems:

Wednesday 12th October – 23:30 (GMT-5) In Europe, Middle East, India and Africa, we are seeing a significant increase in service levels. Service levels are also progressing well in the U.S., Canada and Latin America and we are seeing increased traffic throughput on most services, although there are still some delays and services levels may still vary amongst customers. Our global teams are continuing to work as quickly as possible to restore full and consistent service across all regions.

Update: At 10AM eastern time RIM announced that full service has been restored.

These claims agree with informal reports I've seen and heard from friends who have BlackBerrys. Things are coming back up.

Company President and Co-Chief Executive Officer Mike Lazaridis recorded a video message to customers apologizing for the problems. He said that "It's too soon to say that this issue is fully-resolved" and that he cannot, at this time, give an estimated time to full restoration of service.

As my colleague Fritz Nelson says, service may be restored but RIM's business prospects aren't likely to be. A reliable, centrally-managed network was one of the pillars of BlackBerry's strong reputation in IT circles. The walls may come tumbling down now.