黑莓：霉運當頭，人心思變

????很難找到一個恰當的形象來比喻黑莓手機生產商Research in Motion。啟斯東警察（The Keystone Kops——默片時代的系列滑稽喜劇電影的主人公，一群笨手笨腳的警察——譯注）或許算是一個現成的選擇，但RIM的問題并非都是自作自受?！杜f約》（The Old Testament）里的約伯（Job）？也不盡然，因為RIM的大多數麻煩都是自找的。穿著啟斯東警察制服的約伯？或者也許更準確的比喻是《發展受阻》（Arrested Development）里的高博（Gob，美劇里的一名魔術師，成事不足，敗事有余，而且有點異想天開），但卻穿著一身啟斯東警察的制服。

????RIM聯合首席執行官吉姆?貝爾斯利本周在迪拜發表演講，推出了應用于該公司黑莓（BlackBerry）手機的一項新的創新功能，結果備受嘲笑，因為這項功能既不新鮮，又缺乏創新。而且就在貝爾斯利演講后不久，迪拜及周邊的廣大地區——中東、亞洲、歐洲和非洲——就遭遇了黑莓網絡癱瘓事故。現在，網絡故障已經進入第三天，而且已經擴散至北美和南美。周三早間的報道稱，美國部分地區也已受到影響。

????一開始，RIM將故障歸咎于英國斯勞某數據中心出現的設備故障。這座城市正是英國原創電視連續劇《辦公室》（The Office）中造紙商Wernham Hogg的一家分公司所在地，也是分公司經理戴維?布倫特的家鄉。(好吧，比喻就到此為止)。

????網絡癱瘓發生之前，貝爾斯利向全世界介紹了Tag，這一功能使得兩部手機間可通過輕點實現聯絡人信息共享。是不是聽起來有些耳熟？沒錯。類似的應用雖然技術基礎也許不同，但在iPhone和安卓（Android）手機上已經存在了好幾年。更難堪的是，就算在這些手機上這項功能也從未受到特別歡迎。

????此外，彭博新聞社(Bloomberg News)的報道稱，由于備份數據不斷堆積，必須迅速解決網絡癱瘓問題。否則，RIM可能不得不犧牲一些客戶數據，也就是電子郵件及諸如此類的數據，才能解決問題。這正是投資者想聽到的。

????不過，截至周三午盤，RIM股價走勢仍基本平穩。投資者或許認為，所有這些麻煩預示著某些重大的事情可能會提前發生，比如產生新的領導層，甚至可能是收購。無論是哪種情況，顯然需要發生點什么。

????It's hard to come up with a good metaphor for Research in Motion. The Keystone Kops is an easy one, but not all of RIM's troubles are of its own making. The Old Testament character Job? Also not quite right, because most of RIM's troubles are of its own making. How about Job in a Keystone Kops uniform? Or even better, Arrested Development's Gob in a Keystone Kops uniform.

????This week co-CEO Jim Balsillie, during a speech in Dubai, introduced a new innovation for the company's BlackBerry (RIMM) phone that has been widely ridiculed as not new and not innovative. And soon after his presentation, Dubai and a rather wide area surrounding it -- the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Africa -- was hit with a BlackBerry network outage. Now in its third day, the outage is spreading to North and South America. Early reports on Wednesday said parts of the United States are affected.

????At first, the company blamed equipment failure in its facility in Slough, England. That city, of course is home to a branch of the Wernham Hogg paper company from the original British version of The Office, and to its office manager, David Brent. (But enough with the metaphors.)

????Before the outage, Balsillie introduced the world to Tag, a feature that allows the sharing of contact info between two phones by tapping them together. Sound familiar? Sure it does. A similar app, though based on a different technology, has been available for both the iPhone and Android phones for years now. Even worse, the feature on those phones was never particularly popular.

????Meanwhile, Bloomberg News is reporting that the outage problem must be solved quickly because of a mounting data backup. If it isn't resolved soon, RIM might have to sacrifice some customer data - that is, emails and whatnot -- to fix the problem. Just the thing investors want to hear.

????Still, the stock is trading about even as of midday Wednesday. Investors might see all this trouble as a sign that something big will happen sooner rather than later -- new leadership, or maybe a takeover. In any case, it's clear that something needs to happen.