[Corbu]

BlackBerry Cuts Jobs Worldwide in Smartphone Consolidation - Bloomberg Business

BlackBerry Ltd. is cutting jobs at offices around the world as it brings together the different parts of its shrinking smartphone business.

The cutbacks come as the Waterloo, Ontario-based company works to make its device unit profitable again, BlackBerry said Friday in an e-mailed statement. Lisette Kwong, a spokeswoman for the company, declined to say how many employees were affected. The company had 7,000 employees as of September 2014.

“We have made the decision to consolidate our device software, hardware and applications business, impacting a number of employees around the world,” BlackBerry said in the statement.

After its global market share fell to less than 1 percent, BlackBerry narrowed the target audience for its phones to financial professionals and government workers who demand a rigorous level of security.

While reining in BlackBerry’s hardware ambitions, Chief Executive Officer John Chen is expanding in software, making more applications that work on other manufacturers’ mobile devices. Revenue is still falling, but Chen has stemmed cash losses and BlackBerry began to post profits late last year.

BlackBerry advanced 2 percent to $10.48 at the close in New York on Friday. The shares have fallen 4.6 percent this year.

BlackBerry cuts jobs in its devices business

WATERLOO — BlackBerry cut jobs in the devices side of its business as it moves into the next stage of its turnaround.

The smartphone maker said Friday the layoffs occurred because it is consolidating its device software, hardware and business applications business.

The consolidation is "impacting a number of employees around the world," BlackBerry said in a statement. It did not specify the number of people affected or the locations where layoffs have taken place

The Waterloo-based company said it is reallocating resources to capitalize on growth opportunities and achieve sustainable profits across all facets of its business.

"We know that our employees have worked hard on behalf of our company and we are grateful for their commitment and contributions," it said in the statement.

In 2011, BlackBerry employed about 11,000 people in Waterloo Region, mostly in Waterloo. At last count, it was down to about 2,700 employees in Waterloo, and 7,000 worldwide.

At the same time as the company is making cuts to the smartphone side of the business, it is hiring in sales and marketing and in areas it identified as growth opportunities.

The company's website lists 90 job openings, including 69 in North America and 31 in Waterloo.

"We continue to grow customer-facing teams around the world, and we continue to invest in bringing in new talent to support areas of strategic focus around software, enterprise, security and the Internet of Things, for example," BlackBerry said in the statement. "These investments will put us on the path to growth."

Carmi Levy, a London-based analyst who closely follows the company, said the combination of cuts and new hires is a clear sign BlackBerry is reducing its focus on devices, and ramping up the software and services side of the business.

"This is not a retrenchment, this is a shift in focus," Levy said in a telephone interview. "They are essentially continuing to move further away from their legacy handset business."

Chief executive officer John Chen laid out a plan shortly after he became chief executive officer in November 2013 that called for making the handset business profitable and increasing revenues from software and services.

The latest cuts come as a surprise, though, because Chen said last spring that no more cuts were planned and that hiring would begin in selected areas.

The company cut more than 1,000 jobs in Waterloo and 4,500 globally in a round of downsizing that started in September 2013 and continued into spring 2014.

"There are never any guarantees that a company will not lay off in the future," Levy said. "But it's still disappointing to see the company's original business slowly being wound down as it revamps up for its software-centric future."

Levy said it is still too early to judge whether Chen's turnaround strategy will return BlackBerry to sustained profits and growth.

"Certainly he has delivered on everything he has promised," Levy said. "In fairness to him and his leadership team, what they are trying to do is one of the most complex turnarounds in Canadian business history."

That takes time and there is significant risk associated with it, he said.

"But so far the execution of this pivot, this change, has been as positive as one can expect," Levy said. "And quite frankly stands in stark contrast to the leadership style we saw before Mr. Chen came to the role."

Chen took a major pay cut last year, according to document filed with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission this week.

He saw the value of his total pay package drop 96 per cent to $3.4 million US. Most of the decline was due to share-based awards Chen received when he joined the company in November 2013.

As part of that agreement, Chen received 13 million shares of BlackBerry that will be paid out over five years. The total amount of $84.8 million US in share-based awards was recognized as part of his compensation package of $85.7 million US in fiscal 2014.

[Supa_Fly1]

YIKES More layoffs! This is hurting!

I think I need to save $$ FAST and buy a slew of Passports before they reach END of Line!
Also this leads me to think Foxxcon and Samsung will completely control the hardware - I mentioned before Samsungs very rapid ability for cpu > chipset > RAM > Storage > broadband/radio transmission security components in KNOX 2.x/Galaxy S6 getting VERY close to what we all hold dear in BlackBerry's hardware and that will be another coin for both to parter up on hardware. Expect an announcement in 90days.

[Superfly_FR]

Also this leads me to think Foxxcon and Samsung will completely control the hardware

Sad for our "family" employees ... still a very likely scenario.
Rationalisation is a beach (just to avoid *****)

[Bilaal]

Bilaal said thank you. LOL

Just letting you know.

Haha, that was a mistake but I followed with a 'like'

Posted via CB10

[b121]

I haven't posted since Monday when I made a purchase of BBRY stock so I thought I would post a chart today. We are at an interesting juncture today, just below overhead resistance and looking to pop above that level now.

Attachment 353962

We have resistance at $ 10.40/shr on the down-sloping line, and, we have some monthly resistance at the close at $ 10.45/shr. So it makes sense that we need to close above these two levels in order to enter a new sideways channel. I mentioned on Monday that I wanted to own an additional block of BBRY because I felt I could sell some very short-term call options and pull together $ .70 - $ .80/shr profit. The news of the share buy-back will help me get there today.

As for the share buy-back, it sends a message, first, there won't be 12 MM shares available for shorts and day traders to play with, they will disappear. Secondly, only extremely healthy balance sheets do this, none of our well financed biotechs will try this move, not HALO, not ACAD, or SPHS, none of them. The cost to send this message out to the market is little more than the additional cash-flow they'll obtain this quarter, big deal. The message to those who think BBRY will disappear is quite the big deal though, BB is about to spend some of that massive amount of cash and this is just one of the many areas they have chosen. I would like them to spend much of that cash on acquisitions, not dividends or shares buy-backs. The trick is to grow revenues, generate cash-flow and invest those proceeds too. So let's see firsthand how the market accepts this share buy-back news. A close above $ 10.45/shr should see us head for the elusive $ 11.13/shr level without the need for a take-over rumour! GL

I agree with this. I also think a bigger motivation is for the employees. These shares will be used to link their rewards tighter to the company's performance.

Posted via CB10 (7250 -> 8703e -> 9530 -> 9550 -> 9650 -> 9930 -> PlayBook -> Z10 -> Z30)

[Supa_Fly1]

Does anyone else think QNX' home page should now reside on wordpress.com and have it's own tab for their blog (currently and horribly being hosted by Google's Blogspot servers) in unison for with the DevBlog, Inside BB Blog, and BizBlog's?!!

Also I think it would gravitate more readership and understanding in a positive light for QNX ... as a 'coming out' party, like the big secret is out.

[kellyTKD]

From the WSJ, an excerpt from the new book. There's an interesting vignette about the Verizon and the Storm. Virtually every one of the Storms that were shipped in 2008 had to be replaced and Verizon was pretty mad about it. It also outlines the flaws in the original iPhone that should have caused it to fail. Some of the blame is put on Verizon and other carriers because they wouldn't allow BlackBerry devices to use full browsers until AT&T allowed the iPhone to have one.

This split between RIM and Verizon ultimately caused the carrier to look to Palm and then to Android phones to take on the AT&T iPhone threat.

The Inside Story of How the iPhone Crippled BlackBerry
By JACQUIE MCNISH And SEAN SILCOFF
May 22, 2015 12:25 p.m. ET

BOOK EXCERPT

Condensed and adapted from the forthcoming book “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry,” to be released May 26.

Mike Lazaridis was home on his treadmill when he saw the televised report about Apple Inc.’s newest product. Research In Motion’s founder soon forgot about exercise that day in January 2007. There was Steve Jobs on a San Francisco stage waving a small glass object, downloading music, videos and maps from the Internet onto a device he called the iPhone.

“How did they do that?” Mr. Lazaridis wondered. His curiosity turned to disbelief when Stanley Sigman, the chief executive of Cingular Wireless joined Mr. Jobs to announce a multiyear contract with Apple to sell iPhones. What was Cingular’s parent AT&T Inc. thinking? “It’s going to collapse the network,” Mr. Lazaridis thought.

The next day Mr. Lazaridis grabbed his co-CEO Jim Balsillie at the office and pulled him in front of a computer.

“Jim, I want you to watch this,” he said, pointing to a webcast of the iPhone unveiling. “They put a full Web browser on that thing. The carriers aren’t letting us put a full browser on our products.”

Mr. Balsillie’s first thought was RIM was losing AT&T as a customer. “Apple’s got a better deal,” Mr. Balsillie said. “We were never allowed that. The U.S. market is going to be tougher.”

“These guys are really, really good,” Mr. Lazaridis replied. “This is different.”

“It’s OK—we’ll be fine,” Mr. Balsillie responded.

RIM’s chiefs didn’t give much additional thought to Apple’s iPhone for months. “It wasn’t a threat to RIM’s core business,” says Mr. Lazaridis’s top lieutenant, Larry Conlee. “It wasn’t secure. It had rapid battery drain and a lousy [digital] keyboard.”

If the iPhone gained traction, RIM’s senior executives believed, it would be with consumers who cared more about YouTube and other Internet escapes than efficiency and security. RIM’s core business customers valued BlackBerry’s secure and efficient communication systems. Offering mobile access to broader Internet content, says Mr. Conlee, “was not a space where we parked our business.”

The iPhone’s popularity with consumers was illogical to rivals such as RIM, Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc. The phone’s battery lasted less than eight hours, it operated on an older, slower second-generation network, and, as Mr. Lazaridis predicted, music, video and other downloads strained AT&T’s network. RIM now faced an adversary it didn’t understand.

“By all rights the product should have failed, but it did not,” said David Yach, RIM’s chief technology officer. To Mr. Yach and other senior RIM executives, Apple changed the competitive landscape by shifting the raison d’�tre of smartphones from something that was functional to a product that was beautiful.

“I learned that beauty matters....RIM was caught incredulous that people wanted to buy this thing,” Mr. Yach says.

Verizon’s Big Ask
RIM faced the iPhone threat by joining forces with Verizon Communications Inc. The powerful U.S. carrier understood that AT&T’s exclusive deal to sell the iPhone was a serious competitive threat.

More than 1 million iPhones, dubbed the Jesus Phone, had been sold in its first three months during the summer of 2007. This was no ordinary phone. It was a cult with a devoted and rapidly growing following.

Verizon went searching for an antidote to viral iPhone sales in August and RIM, then the world’s largest smartphone maker, was its chosen supplier. Mr. Lazaridis initially offered BlackBerry’s planned new Bold phone, with its traditional keyboard and new touch-screen display, as the answer. But Verizon officials waved him off. If Apple and AT&T were gaining ground with a touch-screen phone, Verizon had to have one.

Mr. Lazaridis’s solution was Storm, a phone that was little more than a prototype in 2007. Like the iPhone, Storm featured a glass screen. Unlike Apple’s phone, it had a movable screen. Users could activate the phone’s digital keyboard by pressing the screen down, replicating the click and tactile pleasure that made BlackBerry’s physical keyboard so popular.

‘There was a point where the carrier, by changing the rules, forced all the other carriers to change the rules eventually. It allowed Apple to reset what the expectations were. Conservation didn’t matter. Battery life didn’t matter. Cost didn’t matter. That’s their genius.’
—Mike Lazaridis, RIM’s founder
Verizon officials loved Storm, promising a marketing budget of as much as $100 million to promote Storm in thousands of retail outlets. It was a huge breakthrough in the U.S. market for BlackBerry, and Mr. Lazaridis felt he couldn’t say no even though Verizon set a punishing deadline of launching Storm by the spring of 2008.

The nine-month deadline came and went, and it wasn’t until 15 months later in November 2008 that RIM was able to start shipping Storm phones for the busy Christmas season. Internally, most of RIM’s engineers knew the company was shipping a flawed product.

The browser was painfully slow, the clickable screen didn’t respond well in the corners and the device often froze and reset. Like most tech companies launching a glitchy product, RIM played for time. Verizon stoked sales with heavy subsidies, while RIM’s engineers raced to introduce software upgrades to eliminate Storm’s many bugs. “It was the best-selling initial product we ever had,” says Mr. Lazaridis, with 1 million devices sold in the first two months. “We couldn’t meet demand.”

Storm’s success was fleeting. By the time Mr. Balsillie was summoned to Verizon’s Basking Ridge, N.J., headquarters in the spring of 2009 to review the carrier’s sales data, RIM’s senior executives knew Storm was a wipeout. Virtually every one of the 1 million Storm phones shipped in 2008 needed replacing, Verizon’s chief marketing officer, John Stratton, told Mr. Balsillie. Many of the replacements were being returned as well. Storm was a complete failure, and Mr. Stratton wanted RIM to pay.

“You’re going to make us whole on the money we’ve spent fixing your Storm product problems,” Mr. Stratton told Mr. Balsillie, “or we’ll revisit our whole supplier relationship with you. This is your responsibility. We expect you to step up because this is your fault, not ours.” Verizon wanted RIM to pay close to $500 million to cover the carrier’s losses.

“I can’t write a check like that,” Mr. Balsillie said.

Instead, he and his team walked Mr. Stratton through an alternative solution. Mr. Balsillie offered Mr. Stratton a range of concessions, including a free repair and upgrade program and a cache of complimentary BlackBerrys. The fix would cost RIM more than $100 million, a cost that would barely dent RIM’s income statement compared to the bath it would have to take to make Verizon whole.

Mr. Stratton wasn’t happy, but he had little choice. Verizon had signed a “take-or-pay” deal, meaning it was stuck with the units it committed to buy. Mr. Stratton wouldn’t get his $500 million, but he warned Mr. Balsillie that the carrier’s relationship with the Waterloo, Ontario, company would change dramatically.

Storm’s Wake
For the first time since it went public, RIM had delivered a product that widely missed the mark. Given the opportunity to vault past Apple and regain its lead in the smartphone race, RIM had fallen short. RIM was used to winning praise and adulation for its devices; now critics were questioning whether it could still innovate.

“Everybody was upset. It was demoralizing for the whole organization,” says Chief Operating Officer Don Morrison. “You’re shattering the very fabric of what BlackBerry stood for.”

Mr. Conlee says, “We thought it was within our ability to get it done. We were wrong. I think people were embarrassed.”

Only Mr. Lazaridis didn’t regard Storm as a failure. To him, it was RIM’s first crack at a new technology. When he looked at Storm, Mr. Lazaridis saw its technical achievements: It had a good camera, video-streaming capabilities, a great speaker and a replaceable battery. It was Verizon’s first 3G device. Most of all, he loved the clickable screen. Mr. Lazaridis hated the sensation of typing on glass, of using a touch-screen keyboard that didn’t physically respond to every click. He couldn’t fathom that consumers might not love his clickable screen—it had to be the fault of his staff for delivering a poorly built product.

“We let Mike down, in his mind, because he made a request and we didn’t deliver,” says Mr. Morrison. “Whether the request is reasonable or not is not part of that sentence.”

Mr. Yach, chief technology officer in charge of software, shouldered much of the blame from Mr. Lazaridis for Storm’s shortcomings. “He would say, ‘You must have crappy people,’” Mr. Yach says. “He was clearly frustrated. From his perspective he felt that he was let down.”

Mr. Lazaridis was convinced Storm was the kind of device BlackBerry should continue to improve. RIM would take another stab at a clickable screen with Storm 2. Even though sales were tepid, Mr. Lazaridis persisted with the clickable Storm screen until 2010, when U.S. carriers finally lost interest.

Although the market rejected his initial touch-screen approach, Mr. Lazaridis believed the four pillars of BlackBerry’s success—good battery life, miserly use of carrier’s spectrum, security and the ability to type—still ruled in the new smartphone world and gave his company its competitive advantage. Two years after Apple’s launch, it still amazed Mr. Lazaridis that iPhone users had to cart around adapters to power up depleted batteries. His early prediction that Apple would cause AT&T headaches by using up its network bandwidth also proved right.

But there was no going back. Apple was setting a new agenda for the wireless industry. RIM, like others, were now followers. “We built a perfectly evolved, optimized service and product offering that made the industry take off,” says Mr. Lazaridis. “There was a point where the carrier, by changing the rules, forced all the other carriers to change the rules eventually. It allowed Apple to reset what the expectations were. Conservation didn’t matter. Battery life didn’t matter. Cost didn’t matter. That’s their genius. We had to respond in a way that was completely different than what people expected.”

Strategic Confusion
If the failure of Storm sent Mr. Lazaridis back to the lab with a sense of purpose, it left Mr. Balsillie winded. For a leader who thrived on ambiguity, Mr. Balsillie found it hard to grapple with the new competitive dynamic.

To Mr. Balsillie, RIM was in an existential crisis, mired in what he describes as “strategic confusion.” The company’s business had been disrupted on several levels, with no obvious path forward. Was RIM supposed to defend BlackBerry’s QWERTY keyboard, or jump all-in and become a touch-screen smartphone maker? Was it supposed to challenge Apple at the high end of the smartphone market or focus on the lower end with devices like its Curve and Gemini models, which were driving heady sales gains in foreign markets where Apple wasn’t yet a factor? Should the company stick to its closed, proprietary software technology or open its platform?

One of the biggest puzzles was what to do about apps. For years Mr. Balsillie had fought carriers for the right to sell apps to customers, reassuring them RIM was “constructively aligned” with the wireless carriers. Then Apple waltzed in with an app store despite AT&T exclusion from any app revenues.

Now RIM was forced to play catch-up. Unlike RIM, Apple had an army of outside developers who had already built consumer apps for its computers and iPods and were primed to do the same for the iPhone. By the time BlackBerry launched its app store in spring 2009, iPhone customers had already downloaded 1 billion apps. Was RIM taking the right approach, Mr. Balsillie wondered, or should it stick to its “constructive alignment” narrative and leave the sale of apps to carriers?

Mr. Balsillie struggled with each question. “The Storm failure made it clear we were not the dominant smartphone company anymore. We’re grappling with who we are because we can’t be who we used to be anymore, which sucked...It’s not clear what the hell to do.”

[Bacon Munchers]

You know I'm well aware of that! If we ever form a business, we'll have to drag you into it as a partner, you are saving me tons of time on research...

... Hey!
don't forget to leave some crumbs at your table to some of us that provide comedy relief!

Lulz.

[Bacon Munchers]

From the first page of the WSJ:
The Inside Story of How the iPhone Crippled BlackBerry - WSJ

Get ready for a wave of BB bashing and rehashing of Jacquie McNish's and Sean Silcoff's fine upstanding work, no doubt... Aren't they proud...

Fun find Corbu.

In all fairness, Apple deserved it's reward of capturing the large user base back then, due to one reason: Innovation.
Unfortunate for them, they haven't done much since the 3GS iPhone. The investing world stays in largely because of the healthy dividend.
Today's Blackberry, on the other hand....

Arguably, IF BlackBerry did create the Storm the way it SHOULD have been, the iPhone may have only kept to a circle of hipsters and kids.
Lessons learned the hard way.
My bet is that the new BlackBerry won't make the same mistakes, because it isn't fueled by arrogance nor ignorance. Isn't that right Balsillie?



Virtual beers all around the table of gents!

[BanffMoose]

Fun find Corbu.

In all fairness, Apple deserved it's reward of capturing the large user base back then, due to one reason: Innovation.

Unfortunate for them, they haven't done much since the 3GS iPhone. The investing world stays in largely because of the healthy dividend. Today's Blackberry, on the other hand....

Arguably, IF BlackBerry did create the Storm the way it SHOULD have been, the iPhone may have only kept to a circle of hipsters and kids. Lessons learned the hard way. My bet is that the new BlackBerry won't make the same mistakes, because it isn't fueled by arrogance nor ignorance. Isn't that right Balsillie?

Virtual beers all around the table of gents!

No argument that Apple gets kudos for innovation. AT&T gets blame (or credit in the eyes of the end user) for allowing Apple to retain full control over the iPhone. Verizon and the other carriers get blame for having Apple envy, meanwhile purposefully handicapping the other phone OEMs, including BlackBerry. Remember when Verizon removed wi-fi from the Tour, when the AT&T equivalent had it? Why is it that to this day, only Apple gets to do their own OS updates?

That said, BlackBerry might have had more time to deal with the iPhone had it not been for Microsoft improving their Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) protocol enough to become a BlackBerry BIS-lite. Without EAS, the iPhone (and Androids) would've been relegated to feature phone status for several more years. Without EAS, corporations wouldn't have been able to ditch BlackBerry so quickly.

So IMHO, Apple gets the innovation prize, but Microsoft gets the credit for shortening the timeframe BlackBerry had to develop their answer to the iPhone.

Interestingly enough, by allowing iPhones (and later Androids and other phones) to consume as much data as they wanted, carriers will only have themselves to blame for transforming their own businesses into one of managing "dumb pipes." Or at least, one can only hope.

[jake simmons3]

https://n4bb.com/blackberry-confirms...uts-worldwide/

Posted via CB10

[Bacon Munchers]

https://n4bb.com/blackberry-confirms...uts-worldwide/

Posted via CB10

Looks like Peter being replaced by Paul here. Device peeps out, and software peeps in(?)
Numbers uncertain.

[Bacon Munchers]

Nice find !!

interesting how they don't post a pic of a Blackberry...

(facepalm)....

That's because if they did, we would be too fixated on the BlackBerry model, instead of the model-model.

[smart548]

Well,that's unexpected ;-)

http://marketingland.com/infographic...l-media-129486

Posted via CB10

[bungaboy]

Well,that's unexpected ;-)

[Infographic] Which Tech Brands Rule Social Media?

Posted via CB10

How so?

[Shanerredflag]

TBH, we have been saying business classes should study this...it's going to be an epic reinvention of magnanimous proportions.


See how excited this fellow is....

Classically Posted.

[HSB1996]

An important factor I don't think anyone mentioned regarding the 12M buyback for the new employee stock purchase plan is the employees are now willing to accept stock as a form of payment. Which they really weren't before. Let's be honest the employees of the company didn't really even believe in the company's turn around efforts through BB10 and Hines and even up till now. This is a culture shift within the organization. Employees taking ownership in the company and in their roles with in the company. No longer being afraid for their jobs but believing they are creating something bigger.

[Shanerredflag]

I'm really curious to see this next ER's numbers...me thinks the transition is working.

Classically Posted.

[sleepngbear]

And there will be blood.

[sleepngbear]

Thread cleaned, bottoms spanked. Now onward and upward with the thread topic ... and only the thread topic.

Please.

Thank you.

[ibpluto]

If I may pontificate, with the news of hardware layoffs, software hire, Chen statement that hardware is a very important part moving forward. I smell licensing of BB10. Either that or the hardware division was still fat and needed more Jenny Craig action.... again, just pontificating

CB10'n it....via da Z30

[masterful]

If I may pontificate, with the news of hardware layoffs, software hire, Chen statement that hardware is a very important part moving forward. I smell licensing of BB10. Either that or the hardware division was still fat and needed more Jenny Craig action.... again, just pontificating

CB10'n it....via da Z30

It is part of the mass layoffs. I just don't understand how old news now new?

#BBFactCheck

[sidhuk]

UTB Blogs - BlackBerry Has Openings For Up To 100 Of The Best And Brightest!

"The company�s website lists 90 job openings, including 69 in North America and 31 in Waterloo."
Above quote. Wrong math. Love it.
They even talked about the loosing signal book about BlackBerry on CBC last night. Unreal.
CBC is a Canadian? Or owned by some shorts? The interview was cut short at the moment when author said that BlackBerry is not a nortel.
All of a sudden, every one is pulling S. Hit from 2008.



By. BlackBerry Passport User

[spiller]

Looks like Peter being replaced by Paul here. Device peeps out, and software peeps in(?)
Numbers uncertain.

I hope this just means they formed an even stronger partnership with Samsung to outsource the device design. Maybe Samsung will start building their flagships with BB10 OS or Android OS customer chooses (regulated industries option for BB10 security).

[ibpluto]

It is part of the mass layoffs. I just don't understand how old news now new?

#BBFactCheck

No, not part of the original cuts, this is new. But as now mentioned many times, the media is focusing on the lost jobs, not the ones that are posted to replace them. It's all part of the pivot from hardware centric to software centric.

The negative tone to the articles just reminds me of that Don Henley song. "People love it when you lose....give us dirty laundry".



CB10'n it....via da Z30