[belfastdispatcher]

Yeah, except RIM is laying off 2,000 workers. Not to hire better ones, but to save money.

You don't know that, at the time of the lay offs they opened new manufacturing plants in at least two locations, I'm sure those needed employees too no?

[BergerKing]

Restructuring a company requires some layoffs, and we've seen that a number if times. You cull the dead weight, consolidate certain aspects, get people's act together, and proceed in another direction. I watched the threads 3 years ago, 'Sprint is dying, Sprint will be dead in 6 months, they can't compete', and yet, 3 years have passed, and for some reason that dead company still refuses to roll over and assume room temperature. And, in recent history, have pulled even at the top of customer satisfaction.

If you don't like RIM, go play with your phone of choice and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[guerllamo7]

True RIM is not dying but enough competitors that will never be able to match their security want them dead so they can step in and take their market share and so they won't have to compare their security to RIM's.

I have read and hear so many false statements against RIM over the last year that it makes your head spin. It is not true and the more they say it the less I respect the liars and the more I support RIM.

[brucep1]

Restructuring a company requires some layoffs, and we've seen that a number if times. You cull the dead weight, consolidate certain aspects, get people's act together, and proceed in another direction. I watched the threads 3 years ago, 'Sprint is dying, Sprint will be dead in 6 months, they can't compete', and yet, 3 years have passed, and for some reason that dead company still refuses to roll over and assume room temperature. And, in recent history, have pulled even at the top of customer satisfaction.

If you don't like RIM, go play with your phone of choice and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I'm not sure how recent customer satisfaction surveys would react right now. With the Blackberry outage, companies are recieving a record number of Blackberry smartphones to trade in.

And it's funny, that "don't let the door hit you on the way out" line used to be used more. Now, it seems like the wrong thing to say.

[knowledge_6]

sorry but a growing company doesn't lay off employees, where there's smoke, there's fire.

hmmm did u forget that RIM had layoffs in 2005 as well? and in 2005 they were at the top of the chain..

lay offs happen all the time...

[BergerKing]

I'm not sure how recent customer satisfaction surveys would react right now. With the Blackberry outage, companies are recieving a record number of Blackberry smartphones to trade in.

And it's funny, that "don't let the door hit you on the way out" line used to be used more. Now, it seems like the wrong thing to say.

While they've had that, at least they did a mea culpa and offered both apologieS and freebies. We didn't get the 'You're holding it wrong' or 'Put a band-aid on it'. I'm just say'n. And it's a persnickety world. I knew one fella that divorced his wife because she forgot to put ketchup on the table. (No, that's not a joke.)

As for the door comment, there is such a thing as a gracious exit. Some people don't have a clue, and it would be a welcome revival of a decent practice. But 'some' people don't 'do' that very well.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[DBX00]

Yeah, except RIM is laying off 2,000 workers. Not to hire better ones, but to save money.

It kinda makes sense to layoff employees that are Java programmers when you are no longer going to support a Java based OS but rather a QNX based one that came with an acquisition and hundreds of its own employees. If you look at the overhead the last year it was 14% of revenue, up from 11-12%. RIM got fat with overhead and it was time to cut people that no longer had the skillset for the OS and development structure of the new platform.

RIM is in trouble until it gets its premium OS out the door, but the layoffs were necessary and probably a year too late. If they started this transition a year earlier, we would have BBX phones right now. Either way, I like that they've made dramatic changes because it means that QNX and TAT will have free reign to come up with NEW concepts rather than being stuck in the old way of thinking.

[Pete6#WP]

BlackBerry is still king in Canada. They have a market share that is higher than Apple and even higher than Android.

Now THAT'S what I like to see. Brand loyalty.

Go BlackBerry.

[belfastdispatcher]

Now THAT'S what I like to see. Brand loyalty.

Go BlackBerry.

Similar story in UK it seems, less then android but more then iphone, and iphone share was going down while Rim's growing.

http://www.lifeofandroid.com/news_detail/report-android-doubles-uk-smartphone-market-share/

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[Superfly_FR]

The problem is that the US sales direction will translate to other markets - and fairly quickly. RIM can't compete against ultra-cheap Android handsets in the long run, so they're going to have to stake out the middle and higher ground, which is already handled much better by Apple/Android (Samsung, HTC, etc.)

I don't think the international numbers will hold for long. I estimate we'll see dips mid next-year, and I also estimate we'll see RIM's NA market share hit below 5% by October next year.

Don't be northern US centric ... it's a wide and wild world ... NA is around 40% of RIM's market and I'll bet this is not the most profitable one. The other 60% do not follow the same trend, furthermore it is the opposite in other areas where the users grow is tremendous and the market almost "virgin" for 3rd generation devices.

I won't believe that TCO (total cost of ownership) of any device is that different when dealing with corporate devices. We've heard this with Linux before but we observe that, once you've included all the mandatory services and infrastructures, the gap is really thin (if ever in favor of Linux, I won't fight about this).

Well for consumers, that are currently modeled to change their devices every 6 months ... it may be a problem. But is addressing those a nice marketing move ? How will they feel winthin 2-3 years, wondering what to do with their 4-6 advertised-as-obsoletes devices ?
What is the cost of a permanent re-branding ? In a global crisis environment who can swear leading the way is better than bringing up the rear ?

I guess this is far from easy to tell ... but there are greats opportunities for RIM and I think - on this particular worldwide strategic vision - they have reoriented targets a few weeks ago and the OS2 delay is nothing else than the signal of it being applied.

P.S: this is purely speculative views.