Millions Hit By Ongoing BlackBerry Blackout

Millions of BlackBerry customers across the world have been left without email or text services for a third day.

Users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina have continued to report problems with their devices.

BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) had given the all-clear on Tuesday morning after the first problems but they struck again later.

Regular voice-calling services appear not to have been affected and the problem seems to be limited to personal rather than business contracts.

RIM said in a statement: "The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users... were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure.

"Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested.

"We are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible.

"We apologise for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed."

Some high-profile users' tweets will have BlackBerry bosses squirming.

Alastair Campbell tweeted: "Day 3 of BlackBerry black-out. Some free advice. Explain while you fix. Apologise when you have. Recompense after. Handling so far woeful."

Lord Alan Sugar said: "In all my years in IT biz, I have never seen such a outage as experienced by BlackBerry. I can't understand why it's taking so long to fix."

The server problems started at 11am on Monday, at a data centre in Slough, it is understood.

Mobile operators in the UK, including T-Mobile and Orange, posted messages on their websites referring customers experiencing difficulties to the manufacturer.

Steve Dinneen, technology columnist with City AM newspaper, described the situation as a disaster for Blackberry.

Speaking on Jeff Randall Live, he said the outage had badly damaged the firm's brand, which is already struggling.

"It couldn't have come at a worse time for Blackberry - it's already seen its share price fall by two thirds since the start of this year," Mr Dinneen said.

"If ever there's a time that people were going to jump ship from Blackberry, this is it."

Adding to BlackBerry's woes, rival Apple is releasing iMessenger on its iOS5 operating system.

Scott Forstall, Senior VP of iPhone Software said iMessenger would be "pushed to all devices".

The personal consumer giant Apple is now setting its sights squarely on the corporate markets largely controlled by BlackBerry.