BlackBerry’s End Means Apocalypse NOW!!!

by Constantine von Hoffman

For all the rhetoric flying by, you would think that the end of the BlackBerry means the end of business as we know it. Lawyers for RIM, the company that makes these things, not only tried appealing to the Supreme Court but claimed that there is an “exceptional public interest” in maintaining uninterrupted BlackBerry service.

“If BlackBerry shuts down communication as we know it will come to an end! Without some form of instant, portable, text-based messaging system that causes Carpel Tunnel damage workers will be entirely unreachable if they stray more than a few feet from their cubicles!,” said Bill T. Smith, an entirely fictitious lawyer for the company. “Then oil will skyrocket to $70 a barrel! Movies about gay cowboys will run rampant across the land! The Seahawks will go to the Super Bowl! Dogs will lie down with cats and cats will lie down with mice and the mice will lie down with whomever it is that they can’t stand! EGADS!!!”

Clearly this calls for our most powerful leaders to take up the issue. What is Oprah up to, any way?

According to Reuters: “NTP Inc., the U.S. patent holding company seeking a shutdown of most U.S. BlackBerry sales and service proposed that customers of the portable e-mail device get a 30-day ‘grace period’ before any cut-off.” Doubtless this is to give people enough time to write their wills and receive the Last Rites. Now that’s thoughtful.

It is clear by my swinish attitude that I am one of the Berry-less. I am terrified that admitting that I do not now nor have I ever used a BlackBerry may get me fired from here at CIO, but never let it be said that I wouldn’t speak truth to power. Or gibberish to jargon. What little I know about them comes from reading the work of our own Tom Wailgum who writes, “Most knowledge workers in the United States spend more time with BlackBerrys than their significant others.” Which probably explains why so few knowledge workers have significant others.