Millions of people with BlackBerry wireless devices in North America found themselves unable to connect to the Internet during a service interruption that began Tuesday night and extended into this morning.
Research in Motion (RIM) Ltd., which is based on Waterloo, Ontario, said its BlackBerry wireless service suffered a "service interruption." Service for some users was restored earlier this morning.
The company said it is investigating the cause of the problem, which affected most of the company's 8 million customers.
"Once there's been a service outage of this proportion, RIM's challenge is to turn service back up to its users incrementally to allow the probably hundreds of millions of clogged emails in their servers to disperse gradually. Otherwise, they would just cause another major service outage," said Carmi Levy, senior research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group, a Canadian company. "It's called load balancing and is the normal procedure to follow when there's been a service interruption of this nature."
Levy added, "People can barely remember how they coped before the advent of handheld devices. In terms of financial impact on business beyond the inconvenience factor, there's no way of quantifying the impact but I think it's fair to say this is huge. It's thrown the business community into a tizzy that will have everyone going in circles until service is fully restored."

Cornerstone Community Bank, a Grafton-based community bank with branches in Grafton and Menomonee Falls, plans to open a third location in Fox Point.
The bank has applied with the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to open a new branch at a former Associated Bank site at 8607 N. Port Washington Road, said Paul Foy, president of Cornerstone. The bank hopes to have the 1,320-square-foot facility open between July 4 and Labor Day, he said.
If approved, the new bank will give Cornerstone access to the many small-business owners who live in the north shore area, potential homeowners looking to buy there and clients who need wealth management services.
"I've had my eye (on the parcel) for a while," Foy said. "We have two locations in Grafton and Menomonee Falls, and this will be a nice fit for us. It expands our footprint - we'll have a nice triangle. And we'll be the only community bank in the area. All of the big boys are there."
Cornerstone, which has about $97 million in assets, has a wealth management service partnership with Landass & Company Investment Services.

Sara Lee Corp. will receive $240,000 in Enterprise Development Zone (EDZ) tax credits from the Wisconsin Department of Commerce to help the company expand its New London plant and retain 80 jobs in the state.
"The future of our economy relies on our ability to work closely with companies, and make key investments that will support industries, workers and families," said Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle.
The Chicago-based company is a global manufacturer and marketer of brand name food products. Sara Lee currently has 38 locations that employ a combined 2,050 people in Wisconsin.
Sara Lee is installing new production lines at its plant in New London. The total cost of the project is estimated at $6.9 million.
For more information about the business expansion programs available through the Department of Commerce, visit www.commerce.wi.gov/BD/BD-Fax-0901.html.

Blair Williams is expanding his real estate development company with new partners and new services. Read more in the new edition of the SBT Real Estate Weekly bulletin.

Badger Meter Inc. today reported that its first-quarter net earnings dropped nearly 40 percent to $2.6 million, or 18 cents per share, from $4.2 million, or 30 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.
The Milwaukee-based manufacturer's quarterly net sales from continuing operations were $52.7 million, down from $58.0 million a year earlier.
"We are disappointed by the slow start to the year. First quarter sales were affected by a combination of factors including the timing of orders for the year and longer selling cycles as utilities take more time to evaluate various automatic meter reading (AMR) technologies prior to selecting a system. In addition, sales in last year's first quarter were the highest of any first quarter in our history, providing a difficult comparison," said Richard Meeusen, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Badger Meter.
Meeusen said the decrease in earnings was due to lower sales and significant increases in copper prices.
"We were encouraged that copper prices had begun to decline from record levels in 2006, but they edged back up in the first quarter, and are continuing to climb so far in the second quarter. Copper is a primary component of our water meters and as a result, the increases have a significant impact on our margins. Copper prices are presently approaching last year's high. If this continues, we may consider additional price increases," Meeusen said.
Wal-Street punished the company's stock, which dipped $2.82 to trade at $25.03 per share this morning.

A. O. Smith Corp. today announced first quarter earnings of $19.5 million, 63 cents per share, up from $15.5 million, or 50 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.
The Milwaukee company posted record quarterly sales of $577.2 million, reflecting its acquisition of the GSW water heater business and an $8.7 million increase in its sales in China.
"The improvement in first quarter performance resulted from the addition of GSW and a lower tax rate, which more than offset weak customer demand, primarily in the domestic residential HVAC and water heating markets," said Paul Jones, chairman and chief executive officer of A.O. Smith.
The decline in the company's effective tax rate resulted from the inclusion of proportionately higher income from lower taxed operations in China and Mexico.
"We continued to experience reduced demand in a number of housing-related market segments," Jones said. "And the soft markets and continued high raw material costs have overshadowed ongoing productivity improvements and cost reduction actions. Though we are concerned that the weak housing market may linger into the second half of the year, we remain confident we will achieve our previously announced earnings forecast for 2007 of between $2.75 and $2.95 per share."

A new Sign-A-Rama franchise has opened in Kenosha. The business is operated by Steve an Karen Danko at 6804 Greenbay Road.
With more than 850 retail locations worldwide, West Palm Beach, Fla.-based Sign-A-Rama uses software programs to provide a range of sign and graphic services for the business community.
"We discovered Sign-A-Rama at a perfect time in our lives because we were at the point where we were ready to own our own business, and Sign-A-Rama felt like a good fit for us," Steve Danko said. "We are pleased to have chosen a franchise with a proven system of support and training that will enable us to provide Kenosha with unparalleled customer service and high-quality products at a competitive price."
For more information, call (262) 697-0444.

CUNA Mutual Group has opened a new trading center in Madison. Read more in SBT's daily roundup of headlines from newspapers around the state at www.biztimes.com.

Because manufacturing companies are hesitant to commit to full-time workers and are hiring so many temporary staffers, the numbers of employees in the manufacturing industry are grossly undercounted in the Midwest, according to Bill Testa, vice president and director of regional programs in the economic research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and author of today's Milwaukee Biz Blog. Plus, in a weekly bonus SBT blog at OnMilwaukee.com, read about what could be a rough week for Harley-Davidson Inc. OnMilwaukee.com is a media partner of SBT.

WakeUpWalMart.com, a grassroots campaign to change Wal-Mart Stores Inc., staged a "Stop the Wal-Mart Tax" protest Monday to draw attention to the company's impact on the economy.
According to the organization, Wal-Mart costs taxpayers more than $2.5 billion every year because of its "corporate irresponsibility and the fact that uninsured Wal-Mart workers and their families are being forced onto taxpayer-funded public health care."
The protests were staged in 64 cities across the nation, including Milwaukee and Green Bay.
The organization said poorly-paid Wal-Mart workers are forced onto public health care programs and public assistance programs, such as Food Stamps, costing taxpayers more than $2.5 billion a year.
The cost of providing health care to the growing number of uninsured Wal-Mart workers and their families will cost taxpayers an estimated $9.1 billion over the next five years.
Research by the Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) found that Wal-Mart also avoided $2.3 billion in state income taxes from 1999 to 2005, by using an array of tactics, including real estate investment trusts.
Wal-Mart is Wisconsin's largest employer, according to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.  In Wisconsin, on estimated income of $852 million from 2000 to 2003, Wal-Mart paid only $3 million in state income tax - a tax rate of 0.35, compared with the 7.9 percent statutory tax rate corporations are supposed to pay in Wisconsin, according to the CTJ.
"It is outrageous that Wal-Mart, the No. 1 company on the Fortune 500, a company with $11.3 billion in profits, is shifting billions of dollars of its costs onto taxpayers. The truth is that our tax dollars should help fund better schools, more police on the streets and better health care, not subsidize Wal-Mart's irresponsible behavior," said Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com.
WakeUpWalMart.com supporters have distributed - both online and on the ground – more than a quarter million "Wal-Mart Tax" cards to taxpayers.
The organization's data is available at http://ctj.org.

Local stocks find traction
Local stocks bounced around in a volatile session of early morning trading today. The largest local gainers this morning were MGIC Investment Corp. (up $1.16 to $61.71) and A.O. Smith Corp. (up $1.01 to $39.71). The largest local decliners this morning were Badger Meter Inc. (down $2.82 to $25.03) and Strattec Security Corp. (down 64 cents to $43.49). The BizTimes Stock Index regained 4.36 points to close at 182.24 Monday. The BizTimes Stock Index was created by Small Business Times and is monitored by North Shore Bank. The index, which measures the stock values of publicly held companies based in southeastern Wisconsin, is updated daily and can be viewed at www.biztimes.com.

Readers of Small Business Times and the BizTimes Daily news bulletin are invited to register on line for free to attend the Wisconsin Business & Technology Expo, May 2-3. Pre-registered business people can see more than 200 businesses and organizations that have reserved booths to showcase their products, services and staff at the Expo. Attendees also can sign up for more than 30 free seminars to help them grow their companies. For more information about the attractions at the Expo, visit www.biztimes.com/expo.