Patent fight could shut BlackBerry users down
By Clint Swett -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Saturday, January 28, 2006
Story appeared on Page A1 of The Bee

Mitch Zak went to Disneyland last year accompanied by his wife, Tami,
their two children and his BlackBerry.

According to Tami, the BlackBerry drained much of the magic from the
Magic Kingdom.

"He took that thing to the park and he never stopped reading his
e-mails," she said. "He missed our son seeing Mickey Mouse for the
first time because he was answering his friends' e-mails."

Such is the mesmerizing power of the BlackBerry, a hand-held device
with a thumb-operated keyboard that combines a wireless phone, e-mail,
a Web browser, a calendar and a contact list.

From CEOs to livestock-feed salesmen, the BlackBerry has become a
must-have business and communications tool used by 4.3 million users
worldwide, according to its parent company.

But those millions could be forced to go cold turkey if BlackBerry's
owner, Ontario, Canada-based Research in Motion Ltd., loses a patent
dispute and is ordered to suspend its service.

A hearing on the matter has been set for Feb. 24 in a U.S. District
Court in Virginia.

The prospect of a BlackBerry blackout leaves many unnerved. "You can't
invent fire and then take it away from the cave man," said Mitch Zak,
a public relations executive with Randle Communications in Sacramento.

Zak, who also uses his BlackBerry as a bedside alarm clock, will often
wake up at 5 a.m. and start reading his e-mails in bed, much to his
wife's annoyance.

While he may be an extreme example of BlackBerry (sometimes called
CrackBerry) addiction, he has plenty of company.

Ben Davis of Roseville works as a loan officer for Wells Fargo, but
runs a Web design and graphics business on the side. He uses his
BlackBerry instead of a laptop for answering clients' e-mails, surfing
the Web and staying on top of his eBay auctions.

The service, which costs him about $44 a month, is well worth it, he
said. "If clients want something changed on their Web site, they know
they can get ahold of me immediately," he said.

Founded in 1984 by two Canadian engineering students, RIM introduced
its first BlackBerry in 1998.

Since then, the name BlackBerry has become nearly synonymous with
hand-held e-mail devices.

For many of RIM's millions of American users, the beauty of BlackBerry
technology is that when e-mail arrives at a home or office account,
it's automatically routed or "pushed" to the device. By contrast, most
of BlackBerry's competitors have until recently required users to log
into the system to retrieve their e-mail.

The "push" technology is a boon for users like Steve Sparks, a
computer consultant from Austin, Texas, who says the BlackBerry makes
him as well-connected in his car as in his office.

"My customers rely on the fact they can get ahold of me, but they
don't know their messages go to my BlackBerry," he said. "I can be
home or in a meeting or at lunch ... or fishing. And it looks to them
like I'm at my computer."

BlackBerry user Scott Lenet, a Sacramento venture capitalist, can't
imagine a court ordering a shutdown.

"If a judge says to shut it off, he will single-handedly be
responsible for an incredible loss of economic output," Lenet said.

But not all users of hand-helds are as wedded to their devices as
Lenet or Zak. The Sacramento law firm of Downey Brand LLP uses a
system produced by Good Technology Inc. for about 20 of its lawyers.
Mike Libby, Downey Brand's technology chief, said it provides
BlackBerry-like functions for a wide variety of hand-held devices.

"Part of the reason we went with (Good) is because there was a legal
cloud hanging over the BlackBerry."

In fact, analysts say there are some very sound alternatives from
companies like Microsoft and Palm that could ease the pain of
BlackBerry withdrawal.

"These systems will do all the same things as BlackBerry and then
some," said Ben Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies in
Campbell.

When he shows BlackBerry users the newest Windows mobile devices, the
reaction is: "That's way better than what I have."

Quest Technology in Sacramento manages BlackBerry and similar systems
for more than a dozen local companies. Technologist Matthew Sick said
BlackBerry has features that some of his company's clients prefer, but
others are quite content with offerings from competitors.

Part of RIM's technology depends on a patent owned by NTP Inc., which
is demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments from
RIM. If RIM loses its court battle, a judge could order BlackBerry
service severed to all non-government customers in the United States.
Federal employees who use BlackBerrys will likely be exempt for public
safety reasons.

RIM says it's developing a work-around to avoid using the patented
technology, but some experts doubt that such a fix would be
glitch-free.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Patent Office is reviewing NTP's claims and could
rule within a few months.

If BlackBerry has to pull the plug on its millions of users, devotees
will likely just shift to another device, predicted Julie Morgenstern,
a Manhattan-based time management consultant and author of the book
"Never Check E-mail in the Morning."

She said that while the hand-held devices are impressive productivity
tools, they also leash the worker to his job, even during off hours.

Tami Zak feels the same way. Before flying to Hawaii for a family
vacation in November, she laid down the law. "I told him that if he
took the BlackBerry to Hawaii he was just plain stupid," she said.

The family went; the BlackBerry stayed home.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/busine...14953893c.html

===
"Work like you don't need the money, Love like you've never been hurt, Dance like nobody's watching..."
-- Richard Leigh
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