BlackBerry Confirms 4,500 Job Cuts, Warns of $950 Million Loss

An anonymous reader writes "Today BlackBerry announced that it expects its quarterly net operating losses to be somewhere between $950 million and $995 million. It also confirmed earlier reports that it would be cutting 4,500 jobs, roughly 40% of its total workforce. 'The loss is mainly the result of a write-off of unsold BlackBerry phones, as well as $72 million in restructuring charges. The company said that it would discontinue two of the six phones it currently offers.' According to the press release, BlackBerry is going to 'refocus on enterprise and prosumer market.' 'The failure of the BlackBerry 10 line of phones quickly led to speculation that the company, like Palm before it, would be broken apart and perhaps gradually disappear, at best lingering as little more than a brand name.'"

Comments

Email did it

[CdBee]

I bought a used Blackberry when it was still a current phone and was appalled to find it required a Blackberry account to work properly. This was just at the point when even dumbphones like the Sony W810i I was using could receive email in real time and notify the user, with nothing more than some configuration and a basic GPRS connection. Needless to say I never considered going any further and my Curve 4310 sits in a drawer for use as a spare handset just in case

Re:Die already Blackberry

[Anonymous Coward]

Die, die die!

Considering that BlackBerry employs 10k+ people, this is a wholly callous attitude that I'm sure grants you qualification for some CEO-ship somewhere. BlackBerry is not an single entity, but instead a ship carrying 10k people's livelihoods. Granted, those in charge may not have made the right decisions, and rested on their laurels....but this company and it's people arguably greatly furthered what was possible in your pocket, and cheering for their death for no reason other than some kind of device-zealotry, makes me sad for humans, and pity you.

Grow up.

Re:too much credit to Blackberry

[TrollstonButterbeans]

Blackberry and the former RIM are experiencing this because they decided they owned the mobile phone market, thus adopting a Microsoft-lite we own "enterprise" attitude.

Of course, add a few years and they got to reap the benefits of this attitude.

Which goes to show, pride is the ability to overlook your own flaws and history --- and repeat what happens every single time a company adopts the "we are dominant and irreplacable attitude".

p.s. Any given graveyard is full of irreplaceables.