"They're sticking it to private business," said John Wade, CIO at St. Luke's Health System in Kansas City, Mo. St. Luke's supports nearly 500 health care workers using the BlackBerry service.

In the ongoing patent lawsuit brought by NTP Inc. against Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), NTP adjusted its injunction request in a Jan. 17 memorandum to a federal judge, saying it will not seek to stop BlackBerry service for federal, state and local government users as well as certified first responders.

Explaining that change Thursday, NTP attorney James Wallace Jr. said that NTP is complying with a federal law that says federal workers must be automatically exempted. As for the other government entities, he said: "We're not nasty, vindictive people and we're trying to help emergency responders. But purely commercial people are going to have to stop using BlackBerry unless RIM pays up" licensing fees to NTP. "RIM chose not to take out a license, and the time of the free ride is over."

While several IT managers said in interviews that they doubt a court-ordered shutdown would ever take effect, they are miffed by the possibility of an exemption for public sector users.

That's "not fair to the private sector," said Rick Proctor, vice president of IT at Thomas Nelson Inc., a Christian book publisher in Nashville, Tenn. "I understand the government's desire for an exemption for mission-critical services, but I imagine that many private-sector companies could make the same argument."