14 DAY TRIAL // Research In Motion CEO Mike Lazaridis put a halt to an interview with BBC Click when he was asked about the company's handling of the BlackBerry security-related issues in India and the Middle East.
All appeared to go well until the programme's host asked Mr. Lazaridis: "Can we move on to the problems you've had in terms of security and your various arguments with the Indian government and other governments in the Middle East. Is that anywhere near being sorted out?"
Visibly bothered, the RIM Boss reacted by saying "that's just not fair" and going on to point out that there's no security problem and that BlackBerry is the most secure platform.
Of course, the BBC Click host didn't mean to imply that BlackBerry is insecure, rather the opposite, referring to complaints from some governments that its encrypted communications pose a national security risk.
Lazaridis's response was that BlackBerry has been singled out because of its success and popularity, an argument that does carry some weight.
BlackBerry might be encrypting messages and email by default, but there are applications to obtain this functionality on other mobile operating systems as well.
RIM's problems in countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia or India, which threatened to ban BlackBerry communications if their national security agencies are not provided with a way to monitor them, have been widely covered in the media.
The BlackBerry seems to have solved the problem in the Middle East through agreements whose terms have not been disclosed.
In India, however, where the company provided monitoring solutions for BlackBerry Messenger, negotiations are still ongoing over corporate email services.
RIM points out that corporate email traffic is encrypted between the devices and BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) operated by private companies. As a result, it does not have access to the encryption keys.
The BBC Click host tried to reformulate his questions to make it more clear to what issues they referred to, but when he mentioned security again, Mr. Lazaridis called for the end of the interview and said "you can't use that word; it's just not fair."