South African’s just love their Blackberrys, and annoyingly rave about how cool they are, and constantly put their Blackberry pins up on Facebook, saying, “Just got my BB. Add me guys!” But RIM, the company that makes the annoying device, seems to be in quite the spot of bother.
So you thought CrackBerries were only cool in the eyes of business people addicted to their email? Think again. South Africa’s youth has voted BlackBerry the coolest brand in the country in the Sunday Times Generation Next 2011 Brand Survey Awards. That means BlackBerry trumps Apple, in spite of the latter’s beautifully designed and supposedly cooler iParaphernalia. And the reason? BBM and ‘free’ internet for the kids, obviously.
Classy. Mike Lazaridis, CEO of the Canadian firm behind Blackberry, was interviewed by the BBC yesterday; when asked about the problems they’d had with Indian and Middle East governments, who’d demanded greater access to the security system used by Blackberry, Lazaridis said the question was unfair and walked out on the interview.