RIM Said to Plan to Lay off 2000 Staff

[onthebottom]

In the great gold rush that is the smartphone revolution RIM can't seem to get it right... or even less wrong.....

RIM Said to Plan to Lay off 2000 Staff

Research In Motion, the ailing maker of the BlackBerry, is planning to cut at least 2000 staff as part of a global restructuring plan, according to reports.

The restructuring could begin in the next couple of weeks, and would affect staff worldwide, The Globe and Mail said citing several unnamed people close to the company. One person familiar with the company's plans said the layoffs may cut even deeper, the Canadian newspaper said on Saturday.

AllThingsD also quoted sources close to the company as stating that RIM planned to cut at least 2,000 staff out of the company's total current staff strength of about 16,500.

CEO Thorsten Heins

RIM said its policy is not to comment on rumors and speculation, but pointed to comments by CEO Thorsten Heins in an earnings call in March about a focus on driving excellence in operating metrics and efficiency, including an efficiency push across all functions of the organization.

The company has been seeing its market share decline in the smartphone market as competition picks up from Apple's iPhone, and phones running the Android operating system. Research firm IDC reported last week that 9.7 million phones running the BlackBerry operating system shipped in the first quarter for a market share of 6.4 percent, which was far lower than shipments of 13.8 million units for a market share of 13.6 percent in the first quarter of last year.

Signs of Shakeup

Last week, Patrick Spence, a 14-year RIM veteran and head of global sales, resigned from the company, suggesting that reorganization at the company continues after a management shakeup in January.


"The sales function will report directly into Kristian Tear, our newly appointed COO when he starts this summer," RIM said in a statement confirming Spence's exit. In the interim, the sales function will report to Heins, it added.

RIM said in July last year it was reducing its global workforce across all functions by approximately 2,000 employees, as part of a cost optimization program.

The company's fortunes however continue on the downslide. Revenue for its fourth fiscal quarter ended March 3, 2012 at US$4.2 billion was down 25 percent from $5.6 billion in the same quarter of fiscal 2011. The company's net loss in the quarter was $125 million.

RIM also announced in March that Jim Balsillie, former co-CEO of the company, had resigned as a director on its board. Software CTO David Yach also retired from his role, while Jim Rowan, COO of global operations decided to pursue other interests. The company announced in May the hiring of Tear as COO and Frank Boulben as chief marketing officer.

 

[onthebottom]

The arrival of Bean Counters as leaders is the most accurate signal that a company whose success was based on innovation, is heading for irrecoverable failure.



http://www.thestar.com/business/art...f-writedown-as-unsold-inventory-piles-up?bn=1

"Research In Motion Ltd.’s stockpiles of BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablets have swollen by two-thirds in the past year because of slumping sales, raising the chances of the company’s third writedown since December.
The value of RIM’s in-house supplies grew 18 per cent last quarter alone, a faster rate than at any other company in the industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. And that doesn’t include the BlackBerrys gathering dust at RIM’s carriers and retail partners. Apple Inc., meanwhile, saw its inventory decline 11 per cent in the period from the previous three months.
RIM faces an exodus of customers switching to Apple’s iPhone and devices running Google Inc.’s Android operating system. "

What they lack is a sensible and differentiated strategy, they are losing money and pilling up inventory in a market that is exploding - that's double fail..... They didn't have a strategy before the dualopoloy left and they don't have one now....

OTB

 

[larry]

it's probably too late. they must have had smart staff. those staff should have left by now. RIM'll just churn until the money's gone.

 

[onthebottom]

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2012/05/29/rimm-halted-for-news/

May 29, 2012, 4:12 P.M. ET
RIMM Halted, Falls 13%: CEO Sees Loss this Qtr
By Tiernan Ray

Shares of Research in Motion (RIMM) have been halted pending a news announcement.

Update: In a statement, CEO Thorsten Heins said that he was providing a business update, as previously promised. He said RIMM will “likely have an operating loss” for the fiscal Q1 that ends this month. Analysts have been modeling 42 cents per share in non-GAAP profit on operating income of $264 million, according to FactSet.

Heins said the company’s financial performance will be “challenging” for the next few quarters.

The shares are set to resume trading at 4:35 pm, Eastern time, according to Nasdaq.

Update: The shares have resume trading and are down $1.39, or almost 13%, at $9.82.

Here is the statement:

During the Q4 2012 and fiscal year-end financial results conference call on March 29, I said that I would provide our shareholders with candid and timely updates when possible on the progress and challenges RIM is experiencing. While we are no longer giving quantitative financial guidance, I wanted to provide a brief business update at this time, and will provide more details when our Q1 financial results for the quarter ended June 2, 2012 are released on June 28.

In terms of challenges, as I mentioned on the March financial results conference call, RIM is going through a significant transformation as we move towards the BlackBerry 10 launch, and our financial performance will continue to be challenging for the next few quarters. The on-going competitive environment is impacting our business in the form of lower volumes and highly competitive pricing dynamics in the marketplace, and we expect our Q1 results to reflect this, and likely result in an operating loss for the quarter. We are continuing to be aggressive as we compete for our customers’ business – both enterprise and consumer – around the world, and our teams are working hard to provide cost-competitive, feature-rich solutions to our global customer base. On the positive side, we expect to further increase our cash position in Q1 from the approximately $2.1 billion we had at the end of fiscal 2012.

Despite the current challenges, we have made significant progress on a number of fronts in the past few months:

– Our annual BlackBerry World conference and BlackBerry 10 Jam took place
earlier this month and both were tremendously successful. More than
5,000 developers, partners, carriers and enterprise customers from 115
different countries saw the first glimpses of our next-generation
BlackBerry 10 platform and their response was encouraging.

– Our developer partners have been enthusiastic with the BlackBerry 10 Dev
Alpha prototype unit we distributed at BlackBerry World and many are
well underway in developing applications to be ready for the launch of
BlackBerry 10 in the latter part of calendar 2012.

– The support and enthusiasm from our developer community is also
reflected in our app growth, where we now feature more than 80,000 apps,
which represents a 220% increase from one year ago, and more than 15,000
apps for PlayBook compared to less than 2,000 last year. We believe this
bodes well for our ecosystem as we get set to launch BlackBerry 10.

– We are making steady progress with the innovation of our next-generation
BlackBerry 10 mobile computing platform, which is still on track to
launch in the latter part of calendar 2012.

– Our global subscriber base continued to grow this quarter to
approximately 78 million, driven primarily by growth in international
markets, which is partially offset by high churn in the United States,
and our BBM user base has grown to approximately 59 million users
globally.

– Our strong brand internationally was recently enhanced with the
successful launch of two new BlackBerry 7 phones in India and Latin
America.

We continue to make strategic changes to RIM’s senior management team with the hiring of two key new members to RIM’s executive leadership team. Kristian Tear, our Chief Operating Officer, whose background also includes extensive experience in international sales in Europe, Asia and Latin America, and Frank Boulben, our Chief Marketing Officer, who will provide our team with deep experience in the mobile computing and communications industry. Both will assist me and the existing executive team as we continue to make the organizational changes necessary to position RIM for the future and prepare for the launch of our new BlackBerry 10 platform.

The CORE (cost optimization and resource efficiency) program we told you about previously is focused on delivering key operational savings through various initiatives. The financial objectives for the CORE program are targeted to drive $1 billion in savings by the end of fiscal 2013, based on our Q4 run rate. We are targeting better efficiency and use of resources in our sales and marketing initiatives to effectively leverage marketing windows and evaluate our country portfolio to determine where it makes sense for us to prioritize our efforts. We will also continue to review RIM’s organizational structure and clearly define accountabilities for all key businesses and business processes with a goal of eliminating fragmentation, duplication and inefficiencies. While there will be significant spending reductions and headcount reductions in some areas throughout the remainder of the fiscal year, we will continue to spend and hire in key areas such as those associated with the launch of BlackBerry 10, and those tied to the growth of our application developer community. We will share more details regarding our progress throughout the year as programs are implemented or changes are completed.

To further enhance our commitment to successfully completing our transformation, after the release of our year-end financial results, we engaged J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and RBC Capital Markets to assist the Company and our Board of Directors in reviewing RIM’s business and financial performance. These advisors have been tasked to help us with the strategic review we referenced on our year-end financial results conference call and to evaluate the relative merits and feasibility of various financial strategies, including opportunities to leverage the BlackBerry platform through partnerships, licensing opportunities and strategic business model alternatives.

Although we are facing challenges, we remain excited about BlackBerry 10 and believe that this platform coupled with the results of the strategic review will create long-term value for our stakeholders. We will provide another more detailed business update when we report our first quarter results in June.”

Q1 Results Conference Call Details

RIM will be reporting results for the first quarter of fiscal 2013 on June 28, 2012 after the close of the market. The Company will discuss today’s announcement and first quarter fiscal 2013 results on a conference call and live webcast beginning at 5 pm ET, June 28, 2012. The call can be accessed by dialing 1-800-814-4859 or at ://www.rim.com/investors/events/index.shtml. A replay of the conference call will also be available at approximately 7 pm by dialing 1-416-640-1917 and entering passcode 4501363#. A replay of the webcast will be available clicking the link above. The replay will be available until midnight ET July 12, 2012. The conference call will also appear on the RIM website live at 5 pm ET and will be archived at

 

[GG2]

I've never worked in a white collar corporate environment but I suspect it works as follows:

The top level management makes a decision, and everybody down the line is a yes man. Even when the idea is a poor one, everybody in the company tells their boss how great it is to the detriment of long-term stability.

Maybe that's what happened to RIM.

RIM employees should have been sending out resumes for several years now because the writing has been on the wall for awhile.

 

[onthebottom]

Waterloo Ontario

LOL

Now that's funny....

 

[onthebottom]

Interesting read, value if RIM is in their parts, not strategy and go forward viability......

http://news.yahoo.com/rim-sinks-patents-network-value-214638304--finance.html

 

[Rockslinger]

Interesting read, value if RIM is in their parts, not strategy and go forward viability......

Are you saying that RIM is worth more dead than alive? It is a shame that another formerly great Canadian company bites the dust. Now the wolves are after Rogers and Bell. That is the Canadian way. Eat your own and support foreigners like Egyptian companies.

 

[onthebottom]

Are you saying that RIM is worth more dead than alive? It is a shame that another formerly great Canadian company bites the dust. Now the wolves are after Rogers and Bell. That is the Canadian way. Eat your own and support foreigners like Egyptian companies.

That article basically makes the point that the market valuation of RIM is about equal to their assets (less the 2B in cash...)... so yes, it's a Nortel play at this point.

OTB

 

[nottyboi]

When bean counters come in with talks of efficiency while their market share is tanking, the company is going down a path of self-immolation.

With BILLIONS in the bank, RIM needs a VISIONARY LEADER to use that war chest to drive a leapfrogging effort to become the market leader again.

Counting beans and looking for efficiency shows the guy considers his revenue stream as entitled and perpetual. If you don't plant NEW seeds, you will have no beans to count.

actually they only have about 2.5 billion in cash because the former idiots spend billions in share buybacks. 2.5 B not as much as it appears when you have 16,000 employees.

 

[claudiaM]

Oh thats not a god news for those people who might loss their job.

 

[onthebottom]

Looks like it's started... slowly.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303703004577477423617448832.html

Also, first B10 devices to lack physical keyboards:
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/06/21/rims-first-blackberry-10s-wont-have-physical-keyboard/

OTB

 

[SirWanker]

why-windows-phone-8-means-the-blackberry-is-doomed

So much for the lock on the Enterprise vertical.

 

[GG2]

It is a shame that another formerly great Canadian company bites the dust. That is the Canadian way. Eat your own and support foreigners like Egyptian companies.

RIM's demise is nobody's fault but their own. If you put a terrible product on the market, or refuse to evolve to meet market needs, what do you expect will happen? People support superior products and competitive rates - whether it's domestic or foreign made never enters the equation.

 

[splooge]

RIM escalated lay-off numbers to over 5,000. Wouldn't be surprised to see their stock price drop below $8/share. and if it does, this company is going to be broken up. Balsillie is NOT buying a hockey team to move to the Hammer or KW area. what a tragedy.

 

[Rockslinger]

RIM escalated lay-off numbers to over 5,000. .

What is the economic impact on the Waterloo area? I was kidding Sweet Serenity about fied RIM workers a while back but this now is no laughing matter.

 

[splooge]

now this is larger than the nortel implosion.

 

[onthebottom]

Earnings announcement and B10 delay to 2013 was a disaster.... And still no strategy - it's all over now, we'll see who picks the flesh off the carcas......

 

[nottyboi]

The BB10 delay is really a disaster. They will miss the christmas season and barf this product out on the market just when everyone has shiny new phones from Christmas. At the same time they will be competing against the new Phone 8 from Windows.. with Nokia designs that are already better then anything they have been able to come up with.. not pretty I am afraid.

 

[Rockslinger]

If RIM was an Eyptian(sp) company the Harper Tories would be breaking down the door rushing to its aid.