Hey BlackBerry fans, here’s a bit of good news: BBM will officially land on Android devices starting on September 21, with the iOS version going live the next day.
Hey BlackBerry employees, here’s a bit of bad news: there’s a decent chance that you or some of your co-workers are going to lose their jobs.
Those two stories broke within minutes of each other today, and together they paint a peculiar portrait of a company that was once the de facto ruler of the smartphone roost.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the layoffs earlier today, claiming that the company could ultimately cut up to 40% of its total workforce (which equates to thousands of employees) by the end of the year in a bid to cut costs and keep itself afloat. These larger waves of layoffs were preceded by a smaller spate of firings earlier this summer which saw 250 employees let go from the company’s Waterloo R&D and product testing facility. The last great BlackBerry exodus started in earnest over the summer of 2012, when it was revealed that some 5,000 employees would be fired by the end of that year.
