Another black eye for BlackBerry? Updates pegged as likely cause of latest e-mail outages

Research In Motion Ltd., makers of BlackBerry smart phones, is encouraging users to upgrade to a new version of its BlackBerry Messenger application. Version 5.0.0.57 is supposed to resolve the issues that the company thinks are at the root of e-mail outages experienced by large numbers of subscribers this week and last. Phone and texting services were unaffected. A statement sent to InvestmentNews by RIM's media relations firm recommends that anyone who downloaded or upgraded BlackBerry Messenger since Dec.14 should upgrade to this latest version. “Root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (Versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure. RIM has taken corrective action to restore service,” according to the statement. Service interruptions occurred Tuesday evening and for several hours on Dec. 17, during which message delivery was delayed or intermittent.