Call it BlackBerry's "Mission Accomplished" moment. Research in Motion's worst-ever outage, a three-day global meltdown, escalated from bad to catastrophic just hours after the company declared the problem fixed.
The crash began on October 10, a Monday, cutting off service to customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. By Tuesday it spread to South America. That night, RIM assured customers that the glitch had been identified and was "now being resolved."
But on Wednesday, customers in the United States and Canada were hit. RIM wasn't able to restore service until Thursday.
That morning, RIM founder and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis posted a taped message on the company's website, saying, "We've let many of you down." -- Julianne Pepitone
It's been a hot and cold year for the stock market, but these Fortune 500 companies managed to float to the top.
