RIM released a statement this morning blaming the almost 14 hour outage on a few versions of BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) that they released over the last few weeks.

In a brief statement this morning RIM stated:

A service interruption occurred Tuesday that affected BlackBerry customers in the Americas. Message delivery was delayed or intermittent during the service interruption. Phone service and SMS services on BlackBerry smartphones were unaffected. Root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure. RIM has taken corrective action to restore service.

This was followed by a PIN message sent to all BlackBerry users this morning that read as follows:

From: BlackBerry Network Administrator

Subject: BlackBerry Messenger Software v5.0.0.57 Update Available

Sent: Dec 23, 2009 10:50

A new version of BlackBerry® Messenger software is now available. If you are currently running version 5.0.0.55 or 5.0.0.56 of BlackBerry Messenger, please upgrade to version 5.0.0.57 as soon as possible. This version addresses issues with versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56.

To download the most current version of BlackBerry Messenger software, please visit www.blackberry.com/blackberrymessenger and follow the on-screen instructions. Please note that the software update is available free of charge, however downloading and using applications over the wireless network may incur data usage charges depending on your service plan. Please check with your airtime service provider for information about service costs.  If you have any questions about this update, please visit www.blackberry.com/support/messenger.

Thank you,

Research In Motion Limited

As we all wait to see if RIM has fully addressed the issue please take the time to point your BlackBerry browser to http://www.blackberry.com/messenger an update to the latest BBM version.

RIM really needs to step up and take ownership of their network issues and go out of their way to make the customers happy from yesterdays incident.