Frankly Speaking: CrackBerry no more?

30.01.2006
Sometime in the next few days, the heads of BlackBerry users will explode. Like zombies, they'll roam blindly, thumbs still twitching as their headless bodies wander the streets searching in vain for messages that never come -- all this because Research In Motion's addictive wireless e-mail service has been turned off due to a patent dispute.

Sound unlikely? You obviously haven't read recent BlackBerry news coverage. Every story talks up how a BlackBerry shutdown is imminent, how users can't live without them and how their world is about to come to a nightmarish end.

It makes a great story. But it's not going to happen.

Not this week. Not in the next month. Not until late March at the earliest. And probably not ever.

There are going to be some unpleasant bumps coming soon for BlackBerry users. You need to be ready for them if you issue BlackBerries to your users -- or if some of your users have become "CrackBerry" addicts on their own. But there's no crisis, no imminent shutdown, no impending doom.

Emergencies make great headlines. But this time, there's no emergency.