????很難找到一個恰當(dāng)?shù)男蜗髞肀扔骱谳謾C(jī)生產(chǎn)商Research in Motion。啟斯東警察（The Keystone Kops——默片時代的系列滑稽喜劇電影的主人公，一群笨手笨腳的警察——譯注）或許算是一個現(xiàn)成的選擇，但RIM的問題并非都是自作自受。《舊約》（The Old Testament）里的約伯（Job）？也不盡然，因?yàn)镽IM的大多數(shù)麻煩都是自找的。穿著啟斯東警察制服的約伯？或者也許更準(zhǔn)確的比喻是《發(fā)展受阻》（Arrested Development）里的高博（Gob，美劇里的一名魔術(shù)師，成事不足，敗事有余，而且有點(diǎn)異想天開），但卻穿著一身啟斯東警察的制服。

????RIM聯(lián)合首席執(zhí)行官吉姆?貝爾斯利本周在迪拜發(fā)表演講，推出了應(yīng)用于該公司黑莓（BlackBerry）手機(jī)的一項(xiàng)新的創(chuàng)新功能，結(jié)果備受嘲笑，因?yàn)檫@項(xiàng)功能既不新鮮，又缺乏創(chuàng)新。而且就在貝爾斯利演講后不久，迪拜及周邊的廣大地區(qū)——中東、亞洲、歐洲和非洲——就遭遇了黑莓網(wǎng)絡(luò)癱瘓事故。現(xiàn)在，網(wǎng)絡(luò)故障已經(jīng)進(jìn)入第三天，而且已經(jīng)擴(kuò)散至北美和南美。周三早間的報(bào)道稱，美國部分地區(qū)也已受到影響。

????一開始，RIM將故障歸咎于英國斯勞某數(shù)據(jù)中心出現(xiàn)的設(shè)備故障。這座城市正是英國原創(chuàng)電視連續(xù)劇《辦公室》（The Office）中造紙商Wernham Hogg的一家分公司所在地，也是分公司經(jīng)理戴維?布倫特的家鄉(xiāng)。(好吧，比喻就到此為止)。

????網(wǎng)絡(luò)癱瘓發(fā)生之前，貝爾斯利向全世界介紹了Tag，這一功能使得兩部手機(jī)間可通過輕點(diǎn)實(shí)現(xiàn)聯(lián)絡(luò)人信息共享。是不是聽起來有些耳熟？沒錯。類似的應(yīng)用雖然技術(shù)基礎(chǔ)也許不同，但在iPhone和安卓（Android）手機(jī)上已經(jīng)存在了好幾年。更難堪的是，就算在這些手機(jī)上這項(xiàng)功能也從未受到特別歡迎。

????此外，彭博新聞社(Bloomberg News)的報(bào)道稱，由于備份數(shù)據(jù)不斷堆積，必須迅速解決網(wǎng)絡(luò)癱瘓問題。否則，RIM可能不得不犧牲一些客戶數(shù)據(jù)，也就是電子郵件及諸如此類的數(shù)據(jù)，才能解決問題。這正是投資者想聽到的。

????不過，截至周三午盤，RIM股價(jià)走勢仍基本平穩(wěn)。投資者或許認(rèn)為，所有這些麻煩預(yù)示著某些重大的事情可能會提前發(fā)生，比如產(chǎn)生新的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)層，甚至可能是收購。無論是哪種情況，顯然需要發(fā)生點(diǎn)什么。

????It's hard to come up with a good metaphor for Research in Motion. The Keystone Kops is an easy one, but not all of RIM's troubles are of its own making. The Old Testament character Job? Also not quite right, because most of RIM's troubles are of its own making. How about Job in a Keystone Kops uniform? Or even better, Arrested Development's Gob in a Keystone Kops uniform.

????This week co-CEO Jim Balsillie, during a speech in Dubai, introduced a new innovation for the company's BlackBerry (RIMM) phone that has been widely ridiculed as not new and not innovative. And soon after his presentation, Dubai and a rather wide area surrounding it -- the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Africa -- was hit with a BlackBerry network outage. Now in its third day, the outage is spreading to North and South America. Early reports on Wednesday said parts of the United States are affected.

????At first, the company blamed equipment failure in its facility in Slough, England. That city, of course is home to a branch of the Wernham Hogg paper company from the original British version of The Office, and to its office manager, David Brent. (But enough with the metaphors.)

????Before the outage, Balsillie introduced the world to Tag, a feature that allows the sharing of contact info between two phones by tapping them together. Sound familiar? Sure it does. A similar app, though based on a different technology, has been available for both the iPhone and Android phones for years now. Even worse, the feature on those phones was never particularly popular.

????Meanwhile, Bloomberg News is reporting that the outage problem must be solved quickly because of a mounting data backup. If it isn't resolved soon, RIM might have to sacrifice some customer data - that is, emails and whatnot -- to fix the problem. Just the thing investors want to hear.

????Still, the stock is trading about even as of midday Wednesday. Investors might see all this trouble as a sign that something big will happen sooner rather than later -- new leadership, or maybe a takeover. In any case, it's clear that something needs to happen.