BlackBerry outage blamed on new storage feature

A massive service outage of BlackBerry e-mail devices earlier this week resulted from a new storage feature that was not sufficiently tested, device maker Research In Motion (Nasdaq:RIMM - news)said.

RIM said it was able to rule out concerns that the failure was caused by a security breach into its system or an inability to provide enough capacity to nearly 8 million subscribers, according to a statement issued late on Thursday.

RIM also found that the outage was not caused by any flaws in its hardware or its main software infrastructure.

The company had introduced new software designed to make the use of temporary storage on the BlackBerry device more efficient.

But the procedure caused an unexpected problem that "triggered a compounding series of interaction errors between the system's operational database and cache," the company said.

The crash left politicians, lawyers, business executives and other "CrackBerry" addicts without wireless e-mail service on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning.

RIM also defended the way it had handled the crisis, despite criticism that it was slow to communicate with subscribers about the extent and cause of the outage.

"RIM's first priority during any service interruption is always to restore service and then establish, monitor and maintain stability," the company said.

"Proper analysis can take several days or longer," it added, "and RIM's commitment is to provide the most accurate and complete information possible in such situations."

Dell once again offers Windows XP

Back by popular demand:

Windows XP. PC maker Dell Inc. said on its Web site Thursday it will once again let home PC buyers choose between Microsoft Corp.'s older operating system and Windows Vista when they purchase certain new machines.

Dell, like many computer makers, stopped offering XP on most home desktops and laptops soon after Vista launched at the end of January. By late March, the company said only two models aimed at home users could be configured with XP (the option still existed on many models for business users).

But on Dell's IdeaStorm Web site, where visitors can post suggestions for the company and vote on the ones they think are important, a plea titled "Don't eliminate XP just yet" racked up more than 10,700 votes.

"We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings," Dell responded in a Web posting Thursday.

The company said it will immediately offer XP again an option for four models of its Inspiron notebooks and two models of its Dimension desktop PCs.

This comes just weeks after Dell said it is also planning to offer PCs with

Linux, a free operating system that competes with Windows.

"This is really odd," said Michael Silver, research vice president at Gartner. "On new PCs, consumers usually do want the latest and greatest."

Microsoft countered that Dell's move was in response to a "small minority of customers" with a "specific request." Michael Burk, a product manager for Microsoft's Windows Client group, said in an e-mailed statement, "The vast majority of consumers want the latest and greatest technology, and that includes Windows Vista."

Google Acquires Marratech; Gets Into WebEx Territory

After reporting a monster fiscal quarter (the company has close to $12 billion in cash sitting around now and has hired nearly 2,000 new employees this year), Google made a quiet announcement on its corporate blog tonight - they’ve acquired Swedish startup Marratech for an undisclosed price.

This is the first I’ve heard of Marratech, which is broadly in the e-meeting space and certainly competes with WebEx (recently acquired by Cisco for $3.2 billion). Users are able to communicate via text chat, VOIP and video, and share applications in a virtual meeting.

Their service requires a download, whereas most of the newly released e-meeting solutions are browser based (and therefore have less functionality). The Windows version of the software is 31 MB; the Mac version is just 9 MB. Google already has software on many computers with their GTalk, Desktop and Toolbar applications. Bundling this in isn’t unthinkable.