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

It's just a flesh wound!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry guys! Amatuer hour is over!

-RIM

blind-sided

[wasteoid]

Yikes! I totally didn't see that coming!!

They will always be RIM to me.

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

So the headline makes reference to a loss of 4500 RIM jobs, and that is a tragedy.

Re:They will always be RIM to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a chance of course that a small minority of those 4500 people will indeed find themselves providing RIM jobs in the not so distant future.

Oh well

[PylonHead]

40% of their workforce? I guess the worst part of this is that there are still ~6,750 more jobs to lose...

Sad...

[Known Nutter]

At this point its just sad... like watching your dog die.

Re:Sad...

[CdBee]

aaaaargh noooooo (Dont give them ideas, they're desperate to think of one...)

It's a real shame, but their own damn fault.

[wjcofkc]

While on the one hand this is an example of natural evolution within the mobile industry, it's still a shame to seeing them dying. They really did bring a lot of new thinking to the industry... ten years ago. They backed themselves into this corner through sheer ignorance. They literally shunned innovation, thinking that their old platform would somehow keep things going. When they realized what dumb-asses they had been with a lack of long-term strategy, it was too late. I really do like the new BB platform, great phones and a great OS. The problem is, even people who admit that they really are pretty cool don't want to invest in a platform that everyone knows is on the verge of going six feet under. With that in mind, this really is the personification of too little to late. So that's my semi-damning eulogy.

RIP BlackBerry.

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.

Putting 'For Sale' sign on company was dumb move

[JoeyRox]

First, Blackberry waited far too long in their downward spiral before giving serious consideration to selling the company. Second, by announcing to the world that they're for sale they instantly froze the decision process of every corporation that was considering an upgrade to BB10. Why would any customer consider committing themselves to Blackberry for the next 2-5 years when they're not even sure Blackberry would last in (its current form at least) till the end of the year? It's clear Blackberry publicly announced their intentions to sell in order to stem the mass exodus out of the stock. It will go down as the last of many horrible decisions made by the company's management.

too much credit to Blackberry

[globaljustin]

The whole "Lawsuits in Motion" thing distracted them, but mostly they missed the boat

You're giving Blackberry too much credit here...a company of thousands doesn't get "distracted"...the decision makers may be completely out of touch with their market or now technology works...that sure is possible...but a company can't get "distracted" any more than it can "take a shit"

developing the smartphone market for people who want the shiny toys

You talk about Apple as if the iphone is all just bullshit eye candy...

the iphone was better in practically every way...because Blackberry sucked at R&D

they had alot of users b/c for a long time their phones were the only game in town to send email and *also* another big factor is their 'enterprise' deals where they'd sell work phones to big companies on contract, ergo employees get company Blackberries

**that's** why Blackberry had users...and profits

their product was never actually competitively better and they didn't pioneer a market...just offered a service on a device first (email)...that's not really innovation

Re:too much credit to Blackberry

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah the contradictions...
"just offered a service on a device first (email)...that's not really innovation"

So what is "innovative" if offering a service no one else had for years is not?

"their product was never actually competitively better" Didn't you just say they were there first? So was there competition or not? A number of devices tried and failed to beat BB at the email game.

BB was the workhouse device for many years, now i agree they are dying but your comments are nonsense and overlook the past.

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.

Re:too much credit to Blackberry

[Kjella]

They were innovators for professional use. Blackberry had all the i's dotted and t's crossed for businesses, but it gave the users very little reason to want one. RIM thought that purchasing decision would lie with big corporate bigwigs and that employees would be issued their standard corporate badge, laptop and Blackberry. Even the phones they sold individually seemed to appeal more to independent contractors and others with professional needs. Blackberry could not in any way imagine what a hipster or teenager or soccer mom might want with a smart phone. It reminds me a bit of IBM in the 80s when they totally failed to understand that PCs was totally different than minicomputers and mainframes.

Don't be too hard on RIM, going from selling professional products to consumer products is one of the toughest transitions companies goes through and one that's massively underestimated because people think you're going to sell "the same". You don't. Sales has to change, marketing has to change, support and service has to change, the product design have to change, the product lifecycle changes, many of the design parameters driving R&D, engineering and production change. For example IBM was still selling "built like a tank" PCs with service contracts and expensive spare parts because servers couldn't change on a whim, while consumers wanted a cheap new replacement instead.

It's easy to say it, but turning the boat on a corporate culture is slow and hard. You can't just tell someone that's worked 20 years on building rock solid servers that you now need a quick, dirty and cheap solution for PCs and expect it to actually happen. To tell a replacement parts business that's practically never run out of parts - they had parts for positively ancient machines at exorbitant prices - that now we'll just have a few PC parts and when they run out tough shit, buy a new one. The whole system in the entire business works against you and you're actually better off as a new competitor without that incumbent culture. That is how Dell went from dorm room headquarters to Fortune 500 on PCs in 8 years.

Re:Putting 'For Sale' sign on company was dumb mov

[noh8rz10]

Second, by announcing to the world that they're for sale they instantly froze the decision process of every corporation that was considering an upgrade to BB10. Why would any customer consider committing themselves to Blackberry for the next 2-5 years when they're not even sure Blackberry would last in (its current form at least) till the end of the year?

I think this concern is overblown.

--sent from my Palm Pixel

Re: Errata: If they'd only released an vanilla And

[Desler]

Why do you refer to yourself as we? How many people exist in your head?

Reminds me of Novell

[asmkm22]

Such a slow and painful death brought about by a marked lack of new technologies in their final years. For all the apathy and hatred people throw at companies like Microsoft, they survive because they diversify and adapt (some better than others). Companies like Novell and Blackberry just seem to stagnate, while their core product line inevitably becomes too dated to support the bottom line any longer.

The really funny thing about all of this is just how predictable it should be for any technology company. Consumer demand changes pretty much every 1 to 3 years, and if companies aren't updating and innovating during that time, then they will go the way of Novell and Blackberry. Every time.

Re: Die already Blackberry

[mederbil]

I'm a student at the University of Waterloo. These people are brilliant professionals. Some other interesting tech company will take its place in Canada's technology sector and hire these people.

Also RIM is a management nightmare. The ratio of managers to designers is 1:3. That's no way to get things done. Let's have a better structured company take over.

Die BlackBerry! Die!

It just occurred to me...

[hypnobuddha]

is playing a brilliant strategy. This billion dollar writedown lowers the stocks so it can be taken private. Meanwhile, BlackBerry announces the flagship Z30 to get users excited. Z10 hasn't been out that long, and already they're writing off stock? And Z10 is such an awesome phone, anyone who actually uses one loves it. It could only be for one reason, to take the company private asap. Expect announcement of sale soon.