
After presenting their quarterly numbers last Thursday, RIM has taken quick action in remedying their "challenging" quarter, which featured limited success for RIM's newest product, The BlackBerry PlayBook, and as reported earlier Josh, a drastic decline in smartphone market share. In the wake of this news, RIM has already started laying off employees.
Reports from Waterloo, Canada state that as many as two hundred employees were notified that they would be laid-off when they arrived to work this morning. Most of the employees are part of the BlackBerry design team. There have been no reports of lay-offs in any other RIM departments, but again, it has been less than a week since RIM announced their results.
RIM is taking drastic and unfortunate measures following extremely poor numbers in the previous months. BlackBerry Smartphone sales were way down this quarter, from $14.9M in sales last quarter, down to $13.2M as reported last week. Electronista adds that the remainder of RIM's 2011 roadmap has been "widely leaked," limiting RIM's ability for a quick financial turnaround.
If this spring is indicative of where the mobile market is going, it is possible that Apple's competitors, particularly RIM and Android (not to mention Nokia) are going to have to make adjustments to keep up. It is very likely these lay-offs are in-part a result of Apple's rising mobile dominance.
Source
Electronista
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