BlackBerry officially responds to T-Mobile's mailer (UPDATE: T-Mobile answers with free shipping)

You might recall the mailer that T-Mobile sent out last week, looking to see if its customers sporting a BlackBerry handset would want to swap it for the Apple iPhone 5s. BlackBerry fans were upset at first, especially since T-Mobile no longer carries BlackBerry handsets in its stores. And online, only the BlackBerry Curve 9315, a refurbished Curve 9315 and a refurbished BlackBerry Q10 are available.

We pointed out that T-Mobile's consumer friendly CEO John Legere said that he would talk things over with his team and get back to the complaining masses of BlackBerry fans. But this was apparently not enough to placate the BlackBerry faithful. In fact, BlackBerry CEO John Chen wrote back with a post on his company's blog on Tuesday. Chen stated that he could only assume that T-Mobile thought that it had a good deal for BlackBerry customers and that it would be well-received. Chen said that T-Mobile could not be more wrong.


Chen thanked BlackBerry users for sticking up for the handset manufacturer and said that "T-Mobile did not speak with us before or after they launched this clearly inappropriate and ill-conceived marketing promotion." He also extended an olive branch to T-Mobile by saying, "I would like to remind you that our long-standing partnership was once productive and profitable for both BlackBerry and T-Mobile. I hope we can find a way forward that allows us to serve our shared customers once again."

source: BlackBerry

UPDATE: T-Mobile customers who order a BlackBerry model online starting on Friday, will receive free expedited shipping from the carrier.

source: Reuters