+1 for title.
- several million for IT job cuts.
The axe has started swinging at RIM in the latest round of job cuts, the beleaguered BlackBerry maker has confirmed. The Canadian firm plans to slash at least $1bn from operating expenses by next March, the close of its fiscal 2013, amid industry talk that as many as 6,000 heads could roll. A company mouthpiece told The …
I've been watching it for a while now (the handset manufacturer, that is, not a RIM job), and the stock trading websites have long been flooded with RIMM fans. Any time an analyst said 'sell' or an article reported bad news, the comments were filled with "the other handsets are just toys! The market is wrong!" Until recently, they could point to the company having a big cash pile and a positive cash flow, meaning if everything stayed the same they'd survive indefinitely - now, suddenly, it's a big cash pile they are eating into, so things need to change significantly or they crash and burn.
The writing's been on the wall for them for ages now though: at work, even when we had a choice between being issued a BlackBerry or buying our own iPhones, many chose the latter. Now it's a straight choice, since both are covered by the OGC airtime contracts - and sooner or later, someone will ask why we still have a rusty box clanking around to run BES, when the grown-up phones can just talk directly to the mail servers without having their little hands held...
RIM has been axing jobs in small batches for a while now; two days ago, when the axe fell yet again some disgruntled employees called the local news station to "blow the whistle" on what was going on. They're trying to keep the mass firings under the radar as much as possible...cat's out of the bag now, though! Meanwhile, the two clowns responsible for tanking the company just got a nice big fat golden parachute...and the rank and file were told to not expect raises or bonuses this year.