RIM Blackberry bathes in publicity nowadays; but, this is the kind of publicity no one wants to be in. A four-day outage triggered following a failure of England’s data center. Millions of Blackberry users were infuriated by not having e-mail and messaging access. This was a mobility famine, a disaster that reached latitudes. Even with relatively quick restoration and peace offerings via free apps worth $100, investors’ apprehension mounted as market shares plunged to just 6 percent. Furthermore, the cost of gifting their affected customers could reach hundreds of million dollars—figures that will most likely drive RIM to alter their revenue forecast to factor in these compensation.

In an industry where a single minute mistake could cost you the competition, RIM’s dilemma could be bigger than what we see. Analyst Geoff Blaber at CCS Insight told Reuters as this week opens: “RIM has responded swiftly but this won’t undo the damage done to its reputation. This may go some way to appeasing customers but what’s critical is that the problem does not repeat itself.”

While RIM is left to cure a massive infection, Apple’s grief over Steve Jobs’ passing is somewhat alleviated by iPhone 4S reaching a record-breaking 4 million unit sales in just three days. This perhaps is an emotional victory for the organization that has recently lost its father, creator, and strongest pillar. Apple’s shares price has gone up to more than 97 percent this year. The phenomenal market performance is a reminder that Jobs’ spirit is still with Apple after all.

This could be one of the roughest roads RIM has tread in the recent years, but they are expected to bounce back from Blackberry user rage as they reveal software upgrades for PlayBook tablet and launch the teaser of the next-gen smartphone that uses QNX software. The latter would be introduced as a challenger to iOS and Android. Will they pull this off while they are still in the middle of “healing” process? They have a lot of explaining to do at the developers conference in San Francisco to regain respectable market shares.

No Blackberries for some days and the world almost shuttered for RIM. This is now the truth as to how the humankind is smartphone-dependent. One mistake disrupted daily routine of countless of lives. Another gaffe and you may count RIM out of the game.