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The CEO of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is cutting top brass as the troubled company attempts to regain its footing in the competitive smartphone market, according to a report by The Globe and Mail.
An unnamed source told the publication that executives at the senior vice president and vice president levels were told before the company released quarterly results that they no longer had jobs. Executives in the sales and marketing teams were hit hardest, the unnamed source said.
RIM has steadily been losing market share to competitors such as Apple and companies building devices using the Google Android operating system. Earlier this year, the company pushed its co-CEOs aside and elevated Thurston Heins to the position of chief executive officer. Heins had served as chief operating officer for RIM.
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Initially, Heins said there wasn’t much that needed to be changed at RIM. But he quickly backtracked on that statement and clarified that he wasn’t planning to break up the company and sell it in tiny pieces. The earnings call today will provide some guidance on Heins’ plans for the company.
Most experts expected the company to announce poor quarterly results today. Exactly how bad those results will be is the big question. Update 2:36 p.m. PT: As expected, the company reported a fiscal fourth-quarter loss today. Read the latest from CNET onRIM’s results here.
As for layoffs, RIM cut about 2,000 employees last year before the CEO shake-up. That was about 10 percent of the company’s workforce.
