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.<p>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.
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.
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.<p>Sure, their might be another round of layoffs. But almost half the company? Doubt it.<p>[1] <a href="http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/blackberry-curve-9320-price-features-review/1/184873.html" rel="nofollow">http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/blackberry-curve-9320-...</a>
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.<p>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.
Well, people are too quick to jump on any stories blasting RIM nowadays. We should rename HN to "Questionable Hacker Rumors".<p>For one, it is a rumor. Apple Insider isn't exactly known for well placed sources inside RIM.<p>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.
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?<p>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).