[Brad00111]

Originally Posted by gBerry

Perhaps we should mention, that so far the bad publicity has been contained within the Blackberry forums, but when the press get's wind of this, they could have a field day with RIM misstreating it's strategic customers and who knows where the stock could go from there....

None of us want that to happen, and we should be careful not to make things worse

I am not sure Larry King browses these forums.......but I guess you never know

[Sparkomatic]

I'm sure everyone's got a story like this but I called Cingular stores in my area Friday (Orange County, CA) and the responses ranged from, 'we're supposed to get them on the FedEx truck today' to 'we won't have them for a couple of weeks'. When I finally found a store that had them (now my favorite store by the way...ha ha). I made sure I told them that this was not a new activation and that I wanted to buy the BB outright.

I guess I can understand the 'saving for new activation' thing but if someone wants to shell out the money for it, why not just sell it to them?

[codyman]

Your guys are very funny. Do you really think the stock price is going to go down when the press finds out that RIM did not give away free (i.e., no revenue) units?

Guys, either do the poll, get the data and send your letter or give up and go buy a unit.

[mriff]

There is no such thing as a perfect product launch. Just ask any company, big or small.

[9balla4life]

With all due respect guys, but if you actually thought that you would get the device free as an exchange is asking for something that just would not happen. I understand the frustration and in a perfect world, yes, they should honor it but what can you do? It is what it is and unless you have one of your uppers like the "GODS" within your company contact RIM and make them hold to their promise. I honestly don't see how it would really stick.

Companies like these do what they want bc unless you have a LEGAL DOCUMENT then you are SOL.... hate to say it but it is true. Good luck.

[dolo]

BarJohn,

Given the feedback, I hope that we can all come to some sort of concensus and send some sort of email/proposal (if it is included) back to Cing/RIM mgmt.

Regards,
dolo

[barjohn]

I am going to try and incorporate the suggestions and send it to RIM management. I will probably remove our suggested remedies and see if they first meet their promise and second decide on their own to make amends. I have run several small companies and frankly, if we screwed up like this we would do our best to make amends to our good customers. The amount of money we are talking here (roughly 200 attendees per show times 3 shows times an estimated manufacturing cost of $150 = $90K) The events themselves probably cost very near that amount or more. When compared to advertising, this is cheap since a 1 page full color add in a major publication can easily exceed that amount.

[jnelson2000]

Posted in another thread.

[barjohn]

I have listened to everyone's suggestions and input and revised the letter with my best interpretation of the consensus. I have attached it for review. I intend to send this out tonight and see if we get any response.

[crisambo]

Originally Posted by barjohn

I have listened to everyone's suggestions and input and revised the letter with my best interpretation of the consensus. I have attached it for review. I intend to send this out tonight and see if we get any response.

Looks good to me. Thanks, John, for the effort.

[Stinsonddog]

First of all Barjohn, thanks for all this effort. I am tired of waiting myself and I hope this spurs actions. I did note that today I could by it on my firms Premier website.

[gBerry]

Originally Posted by barjohn

I have listened to everyone's suggestions and input and revised the letter with my best interpretation of the consensus. I have attached it for review. I intend to send this out tonight and see if we get any response.

Thank you barjohn. Please keep us posted on when you send it, if they got it, and any and all responses you receive.

Thanks for spearheading this on our behalf

[barjohn]

Here is the body of the email I sent out tonight to RIM management:

Gentlemen:

I have been asked to deliver a letter to RIM and Cingular management expressing our disappointment in the lack of communications from RIM concerning the promised 8700c devices. I have also attached a few selected comments from the forum to provide a flavor of the sentiment. We would appreciate your forwarding this to the appropriate managers at Cingular.

As you may know, I have given this product a very favorable review despite these problems and some of the shortcomings identified in the review. One problem you need to know about and help resolve is the fact that new account customers using the new Cingular 64k SIM are unable to obtain the Internet HTML browser while those of us on the old AT&T accounts are able to obtain the browser on our desktop. Since an HTML browser is promised in the Cingular ad for the device in conjunction with its EDGE service it has many users ready to return their devices. It makes no sense that the browser shows up on old accounts and not on new ones.

Respectfully,

John Griffith, J.D.
www.barjohn.com __________________________________________________ ____
A few comments on my review:

Just a short note to say thanks for posting your review on the 8700r. I have a meeting tomorrow with our corporate Rogers representative to review and, if all goes well, place an order. Your review was just what I was looking for to help with tomorrow's meeting. Thanks again.

Good reviews and comments on this forum and other web sites and forums go a long way to making a product a success while a lot of negative comments can kill a new product. The Motorola ROKER is a good example of the latter.

Here are some sample emails I have received:

You have done one hell of a job with that review. Very thorough and if I didn't already have one I would buy one. Thanks for your time and effort you put into helping us.

Great review BarJohn, thanks. I am sure this will help people make up their mind about purchasing the 8700.

Nice.
I like how you incorporated user experiences from the forum posts in your review. Maybe someone (in the position to do something about it) from RIM or Cingular will read the Conclusions section and help us resolve some issues. Thanks.

Terrific job! Plus thanks for all your posts on the Blackberry Forum
which are very helpful to many of us.

[dolo]

Stinson,

I think that's good feedback.

On a side note,

Everyone here should be cognizant of this: We can all find something to edit and adjust the pros of the content in our unique fashion. That being said, let's bang this memo out and mail it out!!

I should preface the above statement by stating that I am not suggesting that anyone's feedback was not valuable by any means at all, I would prefer that we execute on this effort while we are all focused on it.

BarJohn - thanks again for putting this together. I feel the second draft with the suggested concessions being stripped out - is a more professional approach, after all - for the most part (;)) we are all professionals here.

Let's hope we get some traction and damnit I am going to bed!

Regards all and I look forward to good news.

btw - I am hoping for 10 yrs of free service and completely UL'd devices :D

hahahaha (professionalism? pfffft!)

Regards,
dolo

[barjohn]

I just received a read receipt that the president of RIM had read the email. Boy, this guy must be a real work-aholic as it is late on the East coast.

[besadmin23]

Just to add: As I have mentioned before, I was not at any of the launches but was promised to be on a National Seeding Group and was promised 2 8700's for review BEFORE the launch..... Of course I got nothing like you all and last night I just walked into a Cingular store and got to see one in person. Really made me feel like a regular consumer. It boils my blood to know that they care that little about their top customers. At least I am called a top customer by our Cingular Sales Rep. I'm not bagging on reg consumers, please don't get me wrong, it's just that we were supposed to be able to see the thing early and build up the hype and they haven't even communicated to us.

[dolo]

BarJohn,

Great news and thanks again for putting this together.

Hopefully this will lead to some positive next steps - quick ones at that.

Regards,
dolo

[barjohn]

I want to thank all of you that helpedme and that helped with the PMs to ensure we sent a responsible and professional letter to RIM management. While I don't know for certain that it helped, I do know that changes stared happening today and for that I am thankful. We still have a few issues such as MMS and locked home pages on the browser to resolve and there are several of us working that behind the scenes. I have heard that we got RIM's management attention and that is a positive thing. While the freebee is nice, it wasn't a freebee for me because I can't accept gifts on any government related activities so I had to cover my own expenses which cost more than a new unit to attend the event. I probably would have attended anyway (but probably at government expense) but to me a promise is a promise. They had no obligation to offer it but once they did and the attendee showed up they became obligated. Would they have had as good a turn-out without it? I don't know. This is a decision that their marketing folks had to make. Is it whining as some have suggested to complain when the promises were not kept? I don't think so.

If I tell you that I will pay you $5.00 to come to my party and you show up and have a good time at my party do I not still owe you the $5.00? Of course I do. There are many other demands on your time and that $5 may have been the factor that tipped your decision in my favor over the other demands. It is no differnet here. If you had just said come to my party, I may have a free gift for you and you came and there was no free gift, well you knew ther might not be a free gift so you took a chance and if you complained afterwards that would be whining! (I know this is the lawyer in me talking so just ignore and grin and bear it)

[Stinsonddog]

and I'll be a happy camper in a few days.

[crisambo]

Here's a thread of email that I received beginning on 11/17/05 from the Event Managers. . . read from bottom to top . . .

From: BlackBerry Launch
Sent: 11/30/2005
To: my email address
Cc:
Subject: Re: Thank you from RIM and Cingular Wireless

Hello,

We forwarded your message to our management team; and, we also requested that a Cingular Representative contact you with more details as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience in this matter.

We will also provide you with an update as soon as we hear.

Kind regards,

BlackBerry Registration Center
(650) 226-0831
(866) 405-2517


----- Original Message -----
From; ME
11/29/2005
To <unveil@eventreg.com>
Subject Re: Thank you from RIM and Cingular Wireless

... still waiting . . . where is it? . . .

----- Original Message -----
From: The BlackBerry Team
To: my email address
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005
Subject: Thank you from RIM and Cingular Wireless


Thank you for joining us at the unveiling of the new BlackBerry® 8700c. We know you are as excited as we are about the revolutionary new BlackBerry 8700c, available only from Cingular Wireless, and hope you have discovered more ways Cingular and BlackBerry can help you extend your wireless enterprise beyond email.

We hope you agree that the BlackBerry 8700c offers incredible features, including high-end phone capabilities that include quad-band GPRS/GSM and EDGE network support; send, end and mute phone keys; and other intuitive call management features including smart dialing, conference calling, speed dialing and call forwarding. The new BlackBerry 8700c also delivers Bluetooth® support to ensure wide compatibility with hands-free accessories and car kits, as well as a built-in speakerphone for conference calls and hands-free use.

Thank you once again for helping us unveil the new BlackBerry 8700c. As a token of our appreciation, your Cingular Sales Representative will soon deliver a BlackBerry 8700c right to your door.

Best Regards,
The BlackBerry Team