This is certainly unfortunate. BlackBerry has quietly laid off 250 employees at their testing facility in Waterloo, which assisted the company in various research and development efforts. This news was first reported by CTV and confirmed by BlackBerry representatives.
During the recent annual general meeting Thorsten Heins, BlackBerry’s CEO, asked investors for “patience” and stated “we are still in the midst of a major, complex transition of the this company, and like most of these transformations, progress can be volatile.” An “increasingly competitive environment” led BlackBerry to cut a total of 5,000 employees over the past year with a goal to save a total of $1 billion.
The company released its new mobile computing platform, BlackBerry 10, plus several new smartphones over the past few months: BlackBerry Z10, BlackBerry Q10, BlackBerry Q5 and the upcoming BlackBerry A10.
Source: CTV
