Staff: Roaring by Research In Motion over unfairness and stupidity at the US Patent Office apparently fell silent after markets closed Friday. The BlackBerry maker agreed to payoff NTP, to the tune of US$612 million.

With that capitulation, tech industry hopes of a thorough house cleaning at the Patent Office dimmed. But at the end of the day, RIM had a company to save; hence, the check.

Unfortunately, the tumult of patent battles awakened RIM customers to a greater danger: The risk posed when all datacom traffic is dependent on a single vendor’s servers.

As RIM resumes its slightly less lively growth, some formerly rabid supporters will undoubtedly review more diffuse means of accomplishing the same task.

At least one vendor offers BlackBerry addicts a replacement for RIM’s proprietary services. Funambol threatens to convert the entire industry to commoditized open source, while providing a platform that welcomes BlackBerries, along with other mail servers.

Now that the security cat’s out of the bag, we’re guessing all such services will be held to a higher standard.

BlackBerry will no longer get rubber stamp approval… at least, not from savvier admins.

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