It’s August, and therefore the time to escape the heat of the Middle East for the likes of London’s Harrods and Maddox Club, St. Tropez’s Club 55 and Caves du Roy, and Marbella’s Olivia Valere or the restaurants of Puerto Banús. But, while the region’s banking community is off on holiday, the UAE decided it would be a good time to tell us that our precious BlackBerry’s days are numbered.

Personally, I was off the Saint-Raphael coast on a Lebanese businessman’s Azimut. On seeing the news I panicked, as the thought of my sole form of communication to the mainland, my Bold smartphone, being snatched from my needy hands took over. The combined thought of this technological amputation of my interactive limb, and the ensuing isolation from the world for the next few days until I returned home for Ramadan, was terrifying.

Luckily, the ban doesn’t take affect until October in the UAE, and both Saudi and Bahrain have taken the wise decision not to follow suit. Nonetheless, this is big news – the BlackBerry is to a man what the Hermès Birkin is to our wives – it’s close to realising you are walking down Fashion Avenue at Dubai Mall naked. The thought of having to figure out what to do with BOTH hands while walking through DIFC poses a conundrum to most of the financial services professionals.

No viable alternatives

I’ve personally been able to resist becoming fully-certified ‘CrackBerry’ addict, checking it every five minutes just in case that life-changing e-mail hits my inbox. But I can’t quite imagine a future without this extension of my arm.

My colleagues and I are hardly cool enough to pull off an iPhone. And a note to those currently trying to do so: if you work in financial services, you don’t have enough style to make it work, contrary to what you may believe. A quick glance at the media types hanging out at swankiest bars will confirm this (as half of them fail to manage it).

Apple can’t help and I’m not quite nerdy enough to consider an HTC, so it seems that my remaining options are rather scarce. I could move to Bahrain (or Saudi, I suppose), which at least for the time being doesn’t seem as adamant to dent its productivity with such arcane moves, but the thought of spending every weekend at the Ritz beach club is rather unappealing.

I could go ‘old school’: no data access, relying on my PA to call my cell phone if an important email comes through, or just waiting until after the weekend to check e-mails. Unfortunately, the thought of granting my PA complete access to my Outlook feels almost as awkward as the aforementioned shopping mall experience.

One e-mail about last night’s party at Les Caves at Byblos could leave me evading particularly uncomfortable questions. I must admit, though, that the thought of the simpler pre-BlackBerry era did create feelings of nostalgia and calm for a second.

No one benefits from this ban

I sincerely hope that both the authorities across the Gulf as well as RIM, the makers of BlackBerry, see past their egos and realise that neither their economies nor their shareholders, respectively, and most certainly the end users, will benefit from the ban. It’s a critical tool to get business done, facilitate and speed up the flow of ideas and information, and ultimately move societies forward.

Thankfully, Saudi has backtracked from implementing the ban, proving that our brothers in the kingdom – so often labelled as the more conservative and backward thinking brethren – appear to have understood what is actually at stake.

Jamal Bahir (a pseudonym) is seasoned senior private equity and investment management industry veteran based in the Middle East and Europe. He is an advisor to several ruling and trading families from the Middle East, as well as select European governments and private equity funds, advising on their investment, financial and regional political strategy. The author may be reached on jamal.bahir@gmail.com.