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RIM reportedly started layoffs today
Unfortunately it’s started. According to several reports RIM has started to hand employees their pink slip. It’s still unknown exactly how many jobs have been cut – earlier rumours are estimating between 2,000 and 6,000 – but the one-day total is estimated to be in the “hundreds.” The first round of layoff has hit those in sales and manufacturing.
Tenille Kennedy, RIM’s spokesperson, reportedly confirmed to the Waterloo Record that layoffs started today and they “may continue to do so as the company methodically works through a review of the business. “RIM has committed to achieving significant efficiencies and operating cost reductions over the course of this fiscal year. Our financial target is to drive at least $1 billion in savings by the end of fiscal 2013… Head count reductions are part of this initiative,”
RIM will announce additional details on their business strategy during their Annual Meeting of Shareholders on July 10th. This is where we’ll possibly hear from both JP Morgan and RBC on how they plan to leverage “the BlackBerry platform.” In addition, RIM is still on pace to deliver their next generation of BlackBerry devices, which run BlackBerry 10, sometime in the “latter part of 2012.”
Certainly not the best news, especially since RIM is a respected Canadian company and adds so much value to our economy.
Source: Waterloo Record
Via: Twitter
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59 comments for “RIM reportedly started layoffs today”
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Good news! cut the fat an re-staff with the right players to push out the hot new product!
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No one likes to see people loose their jobs, but it’s the right move for the company’s survival. They are moving to a new platform, those who worked on the old platform are dead weight and need to be cut to make room for people who know the new language.
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Fu and F the new product, you realize that those people have kids/mortgages/payments? you just want to see the hot product? hopefully one day you will be in the same position and you wont be able to afford the new product
My 2 cents.
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Cut the fat, as in, fire the fat people
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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It was hell trying to get a taxi today in Waterloo. All of the taxi’s were at RIM lining up to take the fired employees home.
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THE (RIM)PIRE WILL STRIKE BACKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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No es bueno. It has to be done and the smart thing to do for the company. Not so good for the workers though
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That blows. nobody like to hear that news. C’mon RIM, bring us BB10!!!!!
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In other news, Thorsten Heins, CEO of Research in Motion, is earning $10.2 million this year… Absolutely unbelievable.
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They actually increased his pay from around $2 million.
Also, big fat useless Mick and the bald hockey eagle Jimbo, took $12 million worth of payouts while regular employees get nothing but a walk to the door.
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… in other news, Jim Basille spent a lot of time over the last few years trying to buy/relocate NHL teams.
… and our final story of the day, some have said that OS7 seems to be extremely similar to OS5.
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It’s too late.
Windows Mobile is still struggling for market share. Blackberry is over. Buyout from Microsoft and deepening the BES infrastructure within Windows Server is the last draw.
They dropped the ball with the Storm. RIP RIM.
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I don’t know. I like Windows Phone, but BlackBerry has something like 80 million users. Does Windows Phone even have 1/10th of that yet?
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They DROPPED the BALL by not going ANDROID when eveyone else did.
Funny how SONY and others are still in the Smartphone Game and yet RIM is all but dead. Coincidence?
No. They just messed up big time.
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Ugh, never good to hear about layoffs. Hope the families will be fine.
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If the laid off employees can’t pay their mortgage payments
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CEO earns 10.2 millions, regular hard worker only 1 month salary on severance package!! only a big cheap company like RIM ask to ex-employees to return the stupid old playbook, what they going to do with that? sell it? so cheap RIM…
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No one wants to be fired and yes people have bills to pay but that is business…life. If they keep everyone they don’t stand a chance and therefore more people will lose their jobs in the end. So it is the right thing to do even if heins makes ten million it is a small price to pay if he can make this into more profitable company and help it grow. If he fails then we should judge him. Give him a chance and be patient for bb10.
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What about Jim and Mickey?
They were paid $12 million to leave, was that a reward for their outstanding visionary abilities at guiding RIM into an irreversable downward spiral to death?
Be honest!
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Jim and Mike got paid to leave….just like every other ceo in a company who has not had success at THE END OF THERE CYCLE. Do they deserve to get paid out for their contributions over the last decade yes, do they deserve the pay out for the way the company has been run to the ground in the last year…no. People cry way too much. I get it, its alot of money to pay a ceo, but those 2 employed up to 15000 employees because of the company they founded. So when they were helping everyone…it was ok…the second they make a mistake they are low life scum who are i****s according to some of the posts. We as people throw too many stones while living in glass houses. And stop with the nonsense…..they aren’t firing 6000 employees to pay heins 10.2…..that money they are paying him is chump change compared to 100′s of millions they will save in lay offs. This move is for investors…yes the people behind the ceo calling the shots. So if you want to get mad blame the stock market. If they weren’t a public company they could operate the way they want.
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Interesting that when they announced the payoffs to mick and jim, the stock price dropped 5%. Pi$$ed off investors, with a pathetic and embarassing move. The company is losing money, people are being laid off by the thousands, yet they can always find money to payoff jim and mick and increase heinz’s salary!
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rim is to blame themselves for prolonging the inevitable process of adapting to change.
i feel really sorry for those who got laid off. i have been laid off and i can relate. its really sad and very stressful. i really really hope and pray RIM releases the phones fast into the market and these people can get back to their jobs.
camon RIM you have to survive for canada.
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” You have to Survive for Canada ” ???
LMAO
If your in the Smartphone Business you’d better not be in it for you Country otherwise you will eventually cease to exist.
Samsung and APPLE and ALL the Others know this well.
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Fire Mike and Thorsten – they deserve the axe, not the working employees
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Agreed.
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OHHHHHHHH SAMMIE OH SAMMIE! LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO RIM!! WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SAMMIE!
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Sad day for Canadians, I hope all of those talented engineers land somewhere that will treat them well. Pure ignorance of their executive team is to blame, and arrogance of the two CEOs is appalling. Canadians need to wake up and not let incompetent management run their companies, Andy
Iisten the people on the ground who can detect change of market faster than those focused on buying hockey teams and getting drunk on airplanes.
I hope RIM makes it, Canada needs you. Except those i****s on the board and executive team, they need to be removed… Starting with the new puppet CEO.
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RIM’s CEO earned 10.2 Millions this year. And 2000-6000 workers got their pinky?! I don’t want to live on this planet anymore :facepalm:
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its disgusting that RIM at one moment gave the CEO a huge pay increase and give out huge severance pay cheques to the 2 other dumb i****s and then turn around and say we need to lay off tons of employees the next day. RIM should of done the decent thing buy paying the CEO a normal pay cheque and give a normal severance cheque to those 2 dumb i****s and then RIM could of kept these employees working. its the employees that do all the work not the CEO’s. CEO’s should be paid for actual work done and if its done well. the people doing the actual work should be paid more for their hard work. now hearing this stupid story makes me angry at RIm and I will never buy a stupid blackberry again.
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This is the reality we live in. The race to the bottom. CEO gets a big payday. Lay off workers to cover the cost. The people who are left are asked to do more with less. Quality suffers, impacts revenue. Ask the CEO to leave and give him a huge severance package. Hire a new CEO and repeat until the company goes bankrupt.
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Good to see RIM get what it deserves, too bad the employees are the ones suffering.
Great job MIke and Jim!
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No ones going to buy windows in waterloo
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May God bless all those that are affected by these layoffs.
Or for those that are not religious, Good Luck to you.
Take care folks.
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Did Jim ever get that hockey team he was hoping for?
Anyone know?
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Seriously???? why fire the Canadian employees when this is a Canadian company?????? why not take a chunk out of the American firms when they need to trim staff and fire everyone BUT the americans??????? Keep the Canadians and fire the rest!!
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Good point, but I think everyone is going so it doesn’t matter. The whole company is folding in on itself!
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I fired one guy yesterday, and doing the same today. There’s two types of people. Those who make you money and those who lose you money. If you hire too many people who lose you money you will become the loser who can’t pay your bills including your employees. There’s lots of jobs in Canada. I can’t hire enough people and have to subcontract out large portions of the work I do. It’s business. No one is going to buy something off you for $5 dollars that sucks when they can buy something for $5 bucks that is better; or 2$ that sucks. Don’t feel sorry for anyone. Someone in some other company has it far worse. Go feel sorry for them.
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I read a story the other day in business week about how obama uses technology to advertise on the cheap. The roster of voters is tracked real-time on a dashboard. With RIM getting leaner, why doesn’t the company also have a real-time dashboard to know what’s going on at the consumer level? If they could react so quickly to fix bugs, promote good apps, push out OS7 (in the interim) to the OS5/6 users, they could have at least sustained a flat demand, not a negative one.
I finally gave BBM music a chance. I went from 10 “friends” to 170 with access to 4000 songs. I had to figure this out on my own! I should not have to: the company should be advertising in a way that is cheap and effective.
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All those responsible for the delays in BB10 should be fired.
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Joy to the world!
RIMM is dead.
Let all the earth rejoice!
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Party at my place in Collingwood!
BYOB and BYOD(ie. non-bb)
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Yes, it really sucks that people can’t have a job forever and never have to worry about anything. Welcome to the reality of doing business. What people need to realize is that this is going to save the company upwards of 150 million dollars a year, and that’s if only 2,000 jobs are cut. The people complaining about the CEO’s paycheck also need to realize it would only put a small dent in the cost cutting measures which are needed and being done. It is needed for a company to survive to examine where its money is being spent and make corrections if it is not being spent wisely. IF these people aren’t let go, than all 16,000 people could lose their jobs.
Enough with the armchair CEO’s explaining why they’re stupid. You don’t control a billion dollar corporation for a reason people, and it is because you have no idea what the hell you are talking about.
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Actually I think most people on here would not be SO STUPID to put out products like the STORM and applaud the s**t BB OS along with a continues bobardment of the SAME Model over and over. NOPE many here follow the trend in technolgy and are smart enough to see what is cutting edge working and what is Lame.
Be honest, look HOW LONG it has taken RIM to come out with a All touch no keyboard SMARTPHONE. Seriously.
No sir, Most here are not that ignorent or stupid.
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This makes me happy, Serves Rim right for calling the competition toys..
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To each their own.
I love competition and the obvious benefit it has for the end user.
I hope RIM knock it out of the park with BB10. It will force the other players to work even harder.
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if the ceo really cares about the company, why doesn’t he take a pay cut (say $1M instead of $12M), to help the company?
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you could say the same thing about all the other employees…if they really care they will take a pay cut too..maybe heins should demote himself to another job and they can go on a man hunt to find a ceo willing to work for an average workers salary while being attacked by everyone!
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you don’t think 1M is good enough for a ceo?
i guarantee all those RIM employees would agree to a pay cut if they could keep their jobs.
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Anyone who isn’t working on BB10, BBM, or BES should be fired.
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wow, you should be ceo!
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they probably just fired everyone who had an iphone
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lol.. there wouldn’t be anyone left if they did that!!
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You all better secure your full time jobs in Toronto real quick cause there’s a storm comin!
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Everyone but 2 ( thats 1+1 ) 2 peope in our Office have either an Iphone or Android phone.
Kind of mimics RIM ….they are slowly firing people and the users are slowly jumping ship to Other makers.
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RIM should close it’s German R&D site before cutting jobs in Canada. But…the CEO and many of RIM’s Senior executives are Germans…fire them all. Keep it Canadian!
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