[drspeedy]

As if letting 2,000 people go this time last year wasn't enough... Being a blackberry fan is getting tougher and tougher. Sounds like a race to acquisition territory to me. They've lost 2 big government contracts here in the US and who knows how many more high-paying corporate customer deals that weren't publicized. Stock's trading under $11 today.

http://www.thestar.com/business/arti...should-they-go

The Waterloo-based firm is reportedly preparing to cut anywhere between 2,000 and 6,500 staff over the next six to nine months, with the initial announcement coming as soon as this week. RIM hasn’t confirmed the reports.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...3wU_story.html

RIM said that Karima Bawa had been in discussions about her retirement for some time and plans to stay on to help with the transition once a replacement has been hired.... The retirement also follows the departure last week of Patrick Spence, RIM’s head of global sales. A number of executives left earlier this year, including founder Mike Lazaridis and co-chief executive Jim Balsillie. Lazaridis remains on the board.

Never thought Nokia would outlast 'em.

[rezuth]

So they are cutting like between 14-30% of the staff?

[Stinkles]

This is CRAZY. Do people not know you can check your work email on a Blackberry? That is an incredible market advantage, IMO.

[slit]

"It's over, Johnny."

[EleventhDoctor]

I wonder how the crack berry forums are spinning this.

[sangreal]

This is CRAZY. Do people not know you can check your work email on a Blackberry? That is an incredible market advantage, IMO.

It was... I can check my work email just fine on an android or iphone.

Their advantage is more limited to enterprise management of the device (enforcing policies, etc)

[Divvy]

Sucks for a lot of the kids at UWO.

[rawd]

Are they letting Meridith Valiando go too

[LakeEarth]

It was... I can check my work email just fine on an android or iphone.

thatsthejoke.jpg

This sucks. I'll keep buying them though, as I have family in Waterloo.

[Swag]

How the mighty have fallen.

[drspeedy]

Are they letting Meridith Valiando go too

1,000 emails a day is probably makes her their #1 biggest customer...

[Crazylegs]

Their advantage is more limited to enterprise management of the device (enforcing policies, etc)

I agree with this. As well, the Blackberry network is a very valuable service. I kind of think RIM will move towards opening up that service to other devices for a fee. BBM on an Android or iPhone would be pretty huge.

[Lyphen]

At least Canada will still be able to export their education to the United States and their natural resources to China.

[Kung Fu Jedi]

I agree with this. As well, the Blackberry network is a very valuable service. I kind of think RIM will move towards opening up that service to other devices for a fee. BBM on an Android or iPhone would be pretty huge.

That's was actually a plan under the president that was recently let go. He had advocated the company becoming more services oriented and leveraging their servers with other platforms while still forging ahead with BB OS 10. That idea got axed quickly.

I also think the ship has sailed on that idea an charging for BBM isn't going to fly anymore.

[Cheebo]

I feel terrible for all the employees losing their job but this company is doing a horrible horrible job. They failed to adapt at all to the rapidly changing smartphone market and are on the way out of business as a result. If there is any text book example of how to not run a company in the tech industry it is RIM.

RIM is one of the biggest embarrassments in the entire tech industry in the post internet bubble era.

[EleventhDoctor]

I agree with this. As well, the Blackberry network is a very valuable service. I kind of think RIM will move towards opening up that service to other devices for a fee. BBM on an Android or iPhone would be pretty huge.

It's called iMessage.

[Mr.Awesome]

Some chatter of Facebook buying it. LOL

[Cheebo]

I can't see how RIM was oblivious to the fact when the "real" companies who ran the desktop side of the tech market Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc got into the smartphone business they wouldn't be eaten alive. There was no way they could have won.

[Tobor]

It's also likely they're going to have to do a third stock write off.

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM)’s stockpiles of BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablets have swollen by two-thirds in the past year because of slumping sales, raising the chances of the company’s third writedown since December. The value of RIM’s in-house supplies grew 18 percent last quarter alone, a faster rate than at any other company in the industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. And that doesn’t include the BlackBerrys gathering dust at RIM’s carriers and retail partners. Apple Inc. (AAPL), meanwhile, saw its inventory decline 11 percent in the period from the previous three months. RIM faces an exodus of customers switching to Apple’s iPhone and devices running Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android operating system. While the company is preparing to release a new lineup of phones based on the BlackBerry 10 software, the transition makes its current models even less appealing. That means RIM is more likely to record another quarterly expense next month to account for the inventory’s declining value, said Neeraj Monga, an analyst at Veritas Investment Research in Toronto. “Clearly this stuff isn’t selling,” said Monga, who maintains a buy recommendation on RIM’s stock in anticipation of the company being sold. “Despite all the writedowns they’re taking on the inventory, these inventory levels are not dropping.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...te-canada.html

[zomgbbqftw]

Need to sell the company to Google. For the patents. Either that or sell the patents as long as Google give a free perpetual licence for them back to RIM after the sale. That would bring in billions of dollars worth of cash to pay for development of new phones, tablets and bringing QNX to the masses.

[Dr. Feel Good]

My work phone is a Blackberry Torch and the thing is fucking awful.

[MutFox]

Isn't the security on Blackberry's still better for business?

[f0lken]

It's called Whatsapp.

.

[Cheebo]

I decided to take a look at crackberry to see how they are reacting. The mere fact this is one of their headline images kind of showcases everything that is wrong about Blackberry pretty easily:


That third one is too amazing for words. The old 7-UP mascot from the 90's, Pac-Man chasing a cloud, a block of cheese and icons that look like M&M's?

[neojubei]

Hopefully we will see the playbook on sale for around 100-200 bucks.

[planar1280]

It's called iMessage.

Anyone who mentions imessage or whatsapp as an alternative to bbm has obviously never used bbm

[Double D]

"RIM Jobs at an All Time Low"

[Sealda]

Haha, the iOS and android devices do not have a keyboard which makes it not a good email machine which means they do not appeal to business customers.

[zomgbbqftw]

Anyone who mentions imessage or whatsapp as an alternative to bbm has obviously never used bbm

I have, but as of now the irritation of using a BB outweighs how good BBM is, not only that but since late last year work have been migrating people off BB and onto Android so BBM is becoming less useful. What RIM could do is put BBM in Android and iOS for $2/m or something like that and become a software services company rather than a hardware provider.

Haha, the iOS and android devices do not have a keyboard which makes it not a good email machine which means they do not appeal to business customers.

Rubbish I type faster on my Android touch phone than I do on a BB as it doesn't require physical button presses, just touch detection.

[Cheebo]

Haha, the iOS and android devices do not have a keyboard which makes it not a good email machine which means they do not appeal to business customers.

Except tons of android phones have hardware keyboards. And ask most people with smartphones theses days. They type just as fast if not faster on their touch screens than they did on their old bbs.

[Copernicus]

With all that free time I bet they're wishing they had toys now.

[Mammoth Jones]

Failure to adapt. Failure to innovate. They coasted and got what was coming to them.

[Kano On The Phone]

Haha, the iOS and android devices do not have a keyboard which makes it not a good email machine which means they do not appeal to business customers.

Every person I know who had a work Blackberry, with the exception of one, has switched to an Android or iPhone.

I hate using anecdotal evidence as an argument but yours wasn't even anecdotal, it was just some wrong shit you thought you needed to type.

[Milchjon]

With all that free time I bet they're wishing they had toys now.

Hahaha

[Graphics Horse]

Every person I know who had a work Blackberry, with the exception of one, has switched to an Android or iPhone. I hate using anecdotal evidence as an argument but yours wasn't even anecdotal, it was just some wrong shit you thought you needed to type.

Wasn't it a Steve Ballmer qoute? Sorry to spoil the fun :p

[neojubei]

Wasn't it a Steve Ballmer qoute?

yup.

[Stinkles]

Anyone who mentions imessage or whatsapp as an alternative to bbm has obviously never used bbm

This is what caused Cadillac to decline in the 90s and early oughts. Sticking rigidly with a demographic that was literally dying and refusing to modernize or innovate.

[Raistlin]

This is CRAZY. Do people not know you can check your work email on a Blackberry? That is an incredible market advantage, IMO.

sarcasm?

[Buddha Beam]

Anyone who mentions imessage or whatsapp as an alternative to bbm has obviously never used bbm

whatsapp is fucking terrible. The only IM client I've ever used where messages take hours to be sent to their recipient.

[Kano On The Phone]

Wasn't it a Steve Ballmer qoute? Sorry to spoil the fun :p

Jesus, that's terrible.

[IceCold]

All I will say is this: Nothing beats bbm and blackberry's push email system. It's a shame that the company is in shambles since blackberries have really nice features.

[drspeedy]

Failure to adapt. Failure to innovate. They coasted and got what was coming to them.

perfect opportunity for an avatar quote...

But yeah, most everything that made BB stand out in the corporate environment has been overshadowed by poor evolution. iOS is limited since you have to use OWA to get email and calendars, but at least the security is better than Android (for now). I really like the new 9900 phone and the playbook with OS2 is great, but they're both waaaay late.

Helps that RIM has no debt and a good deal of cash on hand, but that makes the probability of a smooth, quick takeover that much more likely. May actually be a good time to buy RIMM...

[Tobor]

All I will say is this: Nothing beats bbm and blackberry's push email system. It's a shame that the company is in shambles since blackberries have really nice features.

Like what? They are woefully behind in every category I can think of.

[Kung Fu Jedi]

All I will say is this: Nothing beats bbm and blackberry's push email system. It's a shame that the company is in shambles since blackberries have really nice features.

RIM definitely had a head start in the mobile messaging space, but they fell off on everything else. At this point it is a good thing they had that great messaging service, or they would be completely gone by now. The only thing that's keeping them afloat at the moment is taht Apple and Google are still playing a bit of catch-up in that area. But with each successive update of iOS and Android they gain ground, meanwhile RIM can't seem to edge any closer to their competitors in other areas of smartphone use.

[EleventhDoctor]

Anyone who mentions imessage or whatsapp as an alternative to bbm has obviously never used bbm

You're right. I use iMessage and I can't send a message to someone on BBM.

That's because no one I know is using it.

[Cheech]

Anyone who mentions imessage or whatsapp as an alternative to bbm has obviously never used bbm

I used BBM for two years, and I think iMessage is a perfectly suitable replacement. What's better, is I can iMessage and SMS out of the same interface and not worry about it, whereas on the Blackberry it was two different icons.

Regardless, it did make sense at one time to license BBM, but when people are jettisoning their RIM devices like they have mobile AIDS, nobody is going to pay money for that service at this point.

RIM and Sony will both be used in many current and future business classes as case studies. Kings of their industry to gutter trash in just a few short years.

[dream]

I wonder how the crack berry forums are spinning this.

You really need to go see for yourself. They are crazier than webOS people at this point.

[xbhaskarx]

Some chatter of Facebook buying it. LOL

Facebook buying the MySpace of phones would be quite amusing...

[DopeyFish]

1,000 emails a day is probably makes her their #1 biggest customer...

She says she gets 1000 emails a day, not that she writes 1000 emails a day

I hate that ad

[SimleuqiR]

Eeeek

RIM hires JP Morgan to explore options, most likely probably pushing for a sale

The "facepalm" phone in cometh.