RIM to cut 40% of workforce as another top exec resigns

RIM to cut 40% of workforce as another top exec resigns(appleinsider.com)

42 points by verra 14 years ago | 42 comments

codedivine 14 years ago |

As a sidenote, all the cheering and celebration that goes on in the techpress when a company dies is somewhat disgusting. I don't understand why a large section of tech industry wants RIM or Nokia etc to fail. I would rather them see them succeed, see them build something cool and have more and fun things to play with.

edit: I think we can safely conclude that hackers are about as human and as fallible as any other group. We have our own fashions and our own tabloids.

mtgx 14 years ago | |

Probably because this proves them right and the companies wrong, at the time when they refused to believe that iPhone or Android are threats to them. RIM has been very defiant about beliving that especially, but also Nokia for as long as they had their former CEO (about 4 years). "Finally failing" means that the companies were wrong, and the tech press was right all along about them, but the companies were too arrogant to admit it at the time, and now they suffer for it.

Danieru 14 years ago | |

Except these layoffs are not what killed the company.

The company has been dead for a while, reality is just slow to adjust.

Do not think of it as a company dieing but rather thousands of brilliant souls being released from enslavement.

kabdib 14 years ago | | |

Having worked for a large "dead, but didn't know it yet" company in the past: Yup. In the later layoffs, when they had run out of dead wood and were cutting into great, productive workers, it was entirely unclear who the lucky people were. I heard of people getting axed on a thursday who were working at a new place the next week, with higher pay.

diminish 14 years ago | |

Сompanies have their reign and they die; it's inevitable. (But CocaCola didn't yet die). The problem seems to be that people's fate are too much tied to the fate of their company. Each company can be seen as trial of a business model or product idea; they monetize the idea to the full limit and then they go down.

And each death seems to be a birth for another company; look at Apple's profits and Samsungs growth.

coopdog 14 years ago | |

It's also a good thing to have a company finally fail rather than just not quite die perpetually. It frees up their engineers and other talented people to go pursue a company with maybe a bigger or more contemporary vision for adding value to the world

Ie, let's take these resources away from those bad managers.

Sucks for the employees short term, but no doubt they'll be happier in the long run

phillmv 14 years ago |

I wish they weren't failing. I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if thousands of Waterloo grads suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly looking for a job, somewhat cooling down the Canadian developer job market.

potatolicious 14 years ago | |

Given the number of US software companies trampling over each other to hire Waterloo grads, I'm not overly concerned. I'd be more concerned for every other Canadian CS program where the interest-level from American employers is more or less non-existent (the American market being, well, incredibly healthy for now).

I've now been at multiple US companies where they pull out the stops to recruit at Waterloo, while not giving a wayward glance towards other Canadian schools. I still haven't figured out why - even as an egotistical Waterloo grad I have trouble seeing what we had that other schools don't.

edwinnathaniel 14 years ago | |

Engineers gone through a round of lay-off already. This time is all non-engineers.

sliverstorm 14 years ago | | |

Classic. "Who should we fire first? Oh, I know! The people who develop the only products we sell, that's who!"

dmix 14 years ago | |

Do we even know its engineers getting laid off?

jskopek 14 years ago | | |

It seems like its primarily HR, Marketing, and Law getting cut. The blossoming startup scene in Waterloo and Toronto should be eager to try out any engineers that are given the boot; it's still very much a sellers market up here.

icki 14 years ago |

Every single one of these articles has provided no sources for these layoff figures. Sure, many of the C-Level's and SVP's have been leaving their Waterloo coop, but isn't it expected when the company has recently suffered under the current management? Surely RIM still needs it's employees to support BB7 (with devices still being launched globally [1]), while also building BB10 their next-gen OS.

Sure, their might be another round of layoffs. But almost half the company? Doubt it.

[1] http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/blackberry-curve-9320-...

aclements18 14 years ago | |

Seems very feasible if they are positioning themselves to be acquired. With 40% of your workforce gone you no longer have a business, you just have a bunch of assets. I would be surprised if they are still and independent, publicly traded company by the end of 2012.

Unfortunate, they had a lot of smart people working for them, but the dual-ceo structure ensured they would never be decisive enough to take big risks on innovation.

GoodIntentions 14 years ago | | |

>> With 40% of your workforce gone you no longer have a business, you just have a bunch of assets.

Some people might argue you have 40% less assets. ( But I get where you're coming from.. )

supercanuck 14 years ago | | |

SAP seems to be doing pretty well with Co-CEO's

DigitalSea 14 years ago |

I find it ironic that a company called Research In Motion is going backwards as a company rather than forwards. People seem to be championing the fall of RIM and although it is their fault for being an arrogant player in the enterprise sector, it's sad to see them fail like this. While they're not dead yet, it is probably bound to happen eventually unless RIM is taken in a new direction by a CEO with balls to be a leader and not a follower trying to mimic the success of Apple's iPhone like everyone seems to be doing.

I also find it disturbing that tech outlets like Apple Insider, TechCrunch and a few other majors are basically cheering that RIM is the way it is, it's sort of disgusting to see so many supposed experts in the technology journalist field so happy to see a company like RIM fail. Arrogance aside, RIM still make great products, they just need to adapt to the changing market a bit better, ask people what they want.

edwinnathaniel 14 years ago | |

"What I find ironic is that analysts who are sitting in this room will criticize this company while typing out that criticism on a BlackBerry," one shareholder said to laughs from the audience, "And I think that that’s the most self-serving, most despicable activity on this planet," he said.

aaront 14 years ago |

While I don't use any RIM products personally, the Canadian in me wants to see them turn around this slump and be innovative again.

smokinn 14 years ago | |

They were incredibly arrogant and are now paying the price for it.

I remember going to the CUTC conference (Canadian University Technology Conference) and having one of the ex-ceos (don't remember which) lead a chant on stage of "Waterloo! Waterloo! Waterloo!" during his keynote. To say that alienated the conference-goers not from Waterloo would be a bit of an understatement.

From what I've heard of people who have worked there if you went to Waterloo you're golden. Almost all upper management is from there. If you're not you're going to have to fight many times harder to get promoted. It's an old boys club and an incredibly short-sighted one. Just last year I met some Waterloo people working at RIM who were convinced that the company was doing just fine, that the Blackberrys were just as good as the iPhone and the stock tanking was just temporary. They spent way too much time in their self-congratulatory bubble and now it may be too late. I could see Microsoft buying them up, forcing them to get great exchange integration and be the "Windows Phone for Enterprise" provider.

After witnessing their arrogance I definitely won't mourn their loss. I just wish my taxes and mutual funds weren't pumped into them so much.

aaront 14 years ago | | |

I just feel bad for the smart people there that may be out of a job soon.

And yes, most of my desire to see them succeed is because a lot of public money is invested in them, and it would likely send a ripple effect across the tech sector in Canada (specifically the Waterloo area).

btipling 14 years ago | |

I think there is room for three great smartphone platforms and I hope Windows Phone isn't one of them. So I'm rooting for RIM.

mark_story 14 years ago | | |

What's actually wrong with Windows Phone other than it came from MS? From what I've seen of it, its a well designed well executed mobile OS. You can't really say the same of the recent blackberry os releases.

josephagoss 14 years ago | | |

My girlfriend got a windows phone recently, by far its one of the best mobile operating systems I have ever used. She's hates computers and loves the phone. Microsoft did a good job on the OS.

codedivine 14 years ago |

Well, people are too quick to jump on any stories blasting RIM nowadays. We should rename HN to "Questionable Hacker Rumors".

For one, it is a rumor. Apple Insider isn't exactly known for well placed sources inside RIM.

Second, even if we were to take this at face value, read the text: "The layoffs will affect the company's legal, marketing, sales, operations, and human resources divisions, a source said." Not that engineering isn't mentioned. That is a good cutting of cruft.

corin_ 14 years ago | |

This may go against what lots of tech. people like to think (it's certainly a much sexier idea to think of a good company as one run by and only employing hackers), but just for the record there are people in many departments, including legal, marketing, sales, operations and HR, who are both talented and useful at companies.

The fact that RIM clearly has a lot of cruft to cut doesn't mean that a.) that cruft is all, or even mostly, outside their technical staff or that b.) of the non-technical cruft, those getting fired are part of it.

siculars 14 years ago |

I mean, "research" is in your name and I ask you what innovative research and development have you done lately?

R.I.P. R.I.M.

cleaver 14 years ago | |

I don't think they lack in research, or at least spending on research. I think the main thing they lack is a culture of innovation. They sat on their laurels as the market leader and they avoided cannibalizing any of their revenue streams.

mtgx 14 years ago | | |

That's a good point. Many companies are either too unfocused with their research, so whatever they are researching is almost completely irrelevant to their business, or even if they do invent something innovative, it's the managers who don't give the invention any chance for fear they might disrupt their current businesses.

hbar 14 years ago | |

It's not research they lack, it's motion

jaems33 14 years ago |

It went from a rumor of around 2000 workers a few days ago to around 6500.

uvTwitch 14 years ago |

That's what happens when your research is no longer in motion.

recoiledsnake 14 years ago |

This is really sad. Their dev tools were really horrible though and they weren't able to come out from their nice of mail and messaging which other smartphones started doing as well if not better leading to a BYOD(Bring your own device) culture at the workplace. Who wants to carry two phones and keep them charged?

On the bright side, they're still making money with a steady and increasing BIS revenue stream, BBM is getting popular in Europe and Asia and BB10 is on the horizon, I doubt it can save them unless BB10 is leaps and bounds better than the rivals. They have improved the user experience and the dev tools, but remember what happened to Palm with their excellent WebOS, it's really hard to sell phones because of network effects and few available apps(chicken and egg problem).

Gustomaximus 14 years ago | |

With the lack of apps I feel no sympathy. I was working on and off with a company trying to get a well known app onto their store. Because of onerous T&C's that essentially said they had rights to revenue we made in app, our lawyers asked us to have this clause amended. Initially I thought no problem, we have done this a bunch of times and it is usually a quick turnaround. It took over 2 years of faffing about and was by far the worst app store experience I had to deal with.

cleaver 14 years ago | |

I looked at doing BB development when it was it's prime. It was too expensive to get into and the cost of a BB enterprise server was prohibitive for a amall shop.

andrewpi 14 years ago | | |

It's been a while since I've looked into it, but last I looked, all the required tools were free/open-source, and the only requirement to be a BlackBerry developer is/was a $20 signing key.

icki 14 years ago | |

BB10 has the WebWorks platform for HTML5/CSS/JS ninjas and Cascades which makes writing with the Native SDK a breeze (coming from a current Android dev who is really considering the switch).

https://developer.blackberry.com/cascades/ https://developer.blackberry.com/html5/