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BlackBerry Cuts 250 Workers, Calls It Efficiency
First time accepted submitter Dawn Kawamoto writes "Want to become more efficient? Try lopping off 250 workers. That's what BlackBerry did this week — saying it was a move to become more efficient. From the article: '“This is part of the next stage of our turnaround plan to increase efficiencies and scale our company correctly for new opportunities in mobile computing. We will be as transparent as possible as those plans evolve,” says Lisette Kwong, a company spokeswoman.'"
You know, laying off staff can improve efficiency if they're not doing anything useful or have become surplus to requirements. There's a reason it's called "being made redundant."
P.S. Fuck you Dice, /. was a news aggregator long before you ever came along and probably will be long after you've folded. If I wanted to read half-baked op-ed pieces I'd buy a fucking newspaper.
It's almost enough to make me wish Roland was still around.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
See: "auger in"
Just a minute, I'll check for that on my iPhone.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I didn't know there was even 250 blackberry users let alone staff.
Yep! All those sweatshop programmers in China and India are more efficient than the three people left at RIM's office in Canuckistan.
Next week, they'll announce that they're moving their office to the local StarSchmucks'.
Of course the sweatshop programmers are different in one way from the 100 North American people. They cannot afford to actually buy BlackBerries on sweatshop salaries.
Then again, neither can the people who are now jobless.
Just a minute, I'll check for that on my iPhone.
A minute to check a fact...you need a quad core...and a larger screen...maybe on the next refresh.
They are not using iPhones http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23946013 IDC's latest figures show Apple market share at 20% with Android at 70%. Apples highlight of its quarterly reporting was its iPhone sales were down from last quarter...but still better than expected (its other products a disaster) showing its incredible resilience in America...and its strategy of providing the 4S at a lower price(everywhere else was a disaster...China particularly bad).
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23946013 by IDC's last figures 32.5Million shiments. Blackberry is suffering right now, but they are sill selling lots of phones. The trend is the real problem...its down.
250 got out with their lives and only lost their jobs
It is efficiency. They're cutting testing & qa staff. That's what customers are for!
"Whenever I cut someone, I call it fun." — Jack Ripper
Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
And predict more cuts in the future.
the CEO got a bonus for coming up with the idea.
It's hurts next to other places where employers do not need to pay for worker health insurance coverage. And they don't need to play games with hours to get around having to give people it as well.
Suddenly this makes this Lisette all hot, I am feeling an irresistible urge to fuck her.
Heck, BB can just get the carriers to do product testing.
Oh wait. That would require carriers who want the product badly enough. So, that's Rogers. Anybody else? Zimbabwe Mobile? Dunno.
Actually slashing R&D is what you do when you are out of ideas and plan to rebrand as something that doesn't need R&D. Like just becoming an App. Or a sub-brand, like Sony Experia Zeta 99 powered by Blackberry. Kinda like the Facebook phone. And that worked out just fine, right?
Sig for hire.
Those programmers with 10 years experience moved on (or became too sick to work due to no healthcare). You get the guys they dragged in off of the street yesterday.
If you REALLY want to save some cash, outsource the CEO. He's the single most expensive human resource and there's plenty of qualified European CEOs used to working for 1/10th of what an American costs.
A dice.com opinion piece with clickbait headline? That's what we're getting here alongside our daily ration of infoworld articles?
I really need to take my own advice and not bother coming back - but somehow, I still end up doing it every week or two.
Blackberry makes good business devices. I prefer their tactile keypads over a touch screen any day. However, I found it weird when kids and casual users were getting BB phones. Suddenly BB was trying to be all phones to all people. BB gained traction because the business world saw their devices as a useful tool. They ought to focus on that market instead of trying to gain bigger market share. If you try to be all things to all people, you will get nowhere. Stick with the business crowd, make apps and tools useful to them. I don't care if Justin Bieber, Drake or Beyonce uses BB devices and neither should Blackberry. However, if Bernanke, Buffet, or Kim Shannon uses it--that means something--and that is who BB should care about and focus on. Let the kids and celebs use the other phones to play with.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Is Blackberry still sending wheelbarrows full of money to their "Global Creative Director", Alicia Keys?