BlackBerry Cuts 250 Workers, Calls It Efficiency 68
First time accepted submitter Dawn Kawamoto writes "Want to become more efficient? Try lopping off 250 workers. That's what BlackBerry did this week — saying it was a move to become more efficient. From the article: '“This is part of the next stage of our turnaround plan to increase efficiencies and scale our company correctly for new opportunities in mobile computing. We will be as transparent as possible as those plans evolve,” says Lisette Kwong, a company spokeswoman.'"
Efficiency (Score:1, Troll)
Yep! All those sweatshop programmers in China and India are more efficient than the three people left at RIM's office in Canuckistan.
Next week, they'll announce that they're moving their office to the local StarSchmucks'.
remove healthcare from jobs (Score:2)
It's hurts next to other places where employers do not need to pay for worker health insurance coverage. And they don't need to play games with hours to get around having to give people it as well.
Re:Efficiency (Score:5, Insightful)
Those programmers with 10 years experience moved on (or became too sick to work due to no healthcare). You get the guys they dragged in off of the street yesterday.
If you REALLY want to save some cash, outsource the CEO. He's the single most expensive human resource and there's plenty of qualified European CEOs used to working for 1/10th of what an American costs.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep! All those sweatshop programmers in China and India are more efficient than the three people left at RIM's office in Canuckistan.
Next week, they'll announce that they're moving their office to the local StarSchmucks'.
Of course the sweatshop programmers are different in one way from the 100 North American people. They cannot afford to actually buy BlackBerries on sweatshop salaries.
Then again, neither can the people who are now jobless.
Re: (Score:2)
"Whenever I cut someone, I call it fun." — Jack Ripper
Clickbait Summary and Dice article. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, laying off staff can improve efficiency if they're not doing anything useful or have become surplus to requirements. There's a reason it's called "being made redundant."
P.S. Fuck you Dice, /. was a news aggregator long before you ever came along and probably will be long after you've folded. If I wanted to read half-baked op-ed pieces I'd buy a fucking newspaper.
Re: (Score:3)
You know, laying off staff can improve efficiency if they're not doing anything useful or have become surplus to requirements. There's a reason it's called "being made redundant."
I've always felt that way about board members; all I ever see them do (on the rare occasion they even show up) is go into catered meetings and bullshit with each other.
And those dickheads are being paid millions for... well, to be honest I have no fucking idea. Wearing suits, I guess.
P.S. Fuck you Dice, /. was a news aggregator long before you ever came along and probably will be long after you've folded. If I wanted to read half-baked op-ed pieces I'd buy a fucking newspaper.
^ making me wish I had mod points.
Re: (Score:1)
These guys have a surefire 100% plan for beating Obamacare!
They're Canadian.
Re:Clickbait Summary and Dice article. (Score:5, Insightful)
This. At risk of feeding the Obamacare troll, Canada hasn't had much change in their healthcare system since going socialized quite a few years ago. For some reason the terrible costs and market distortion from it didn't stop RIM/Blackberry from becoming iconic in the 2000s. So we are to believe that healthcare is the cause of their decline now? That it has nothing to do with hubris, inertia and having their asses kicked by Apple and Android vendors?
Re: (Score:2)
If you think verbal diarrhea is a behavior exclusive to Republicans, you haven't been listening to any Democrats.
When a boot smashes your face, it doesn't really matter if it's the Right one or the Left one, does it?
Re: (Score:2)
The largest Canadian corporation (Royal Bank of Canada) would be the 36th largest corporation in the US (by Capitalization). RIM is still the largest Canadian corporation that really has an international presence; everything larger than RIM it is either a national/regional bank or is in the work of selling off Canada's natural resources. Maybe it's true that Canadian Obamacare and the like make it more difficult for Canadian companies to sustain growth.
Re:Clickbait Summary and Dice article. (Score:5, Insightful)
So when your manager says "I don't understand what you do, so it must be easy" he's some kind of genius, right?
Mostly board members are due diligence on the senior execs. If everything is going well, and the CEO's not trying to make any big changes this quarter, they don't need to do much. If the company didn't make it's numbers, they're the ones who can fire the CEO if he doesn't appease them (and I've seen the CEO of a company I've worked for fired twice now -it really does happen). If the CEO wants to re-org the company, make an acquisition, or add some new line of business, he has to sell that to the board.
"All" the board members do is use their judgment - but they have lots of money at stake, and CEOs are champions bullshitters as a rule, so the decisions are rarely easy or obvious.
Dice not even trying to hide it now? (Score:2)
"turnaround plan" (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just a minute, I'll check for that on my iPhone.
Apple the iPhone (4S) company (Score:2)
Just a minute, I'll check for that on my iPhone.
A minute to check a fact...you need a quad core...and a larger screen...maybe on the next refresh.
They are not using iPhones http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23946013 [idc.com] IDC's latest figures show Apple market share at 20% with Android at 70%. Apples highlight of its quarterly reporting was its iPhone sales were down from last quarter...but still better than expected (its other products a disaster) showing its incredible resilience in America...and its strategy of providing the 4S at a lower price(
250?! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
they recently cancelled their playbook.
the aspect ratio on the q10 is a 1:1 why? wth? now i have to support 3 aspect ratios in my games? umm no.
their dev environment isnt that great.
uploads to devices are capped at 1meg per sec.
i can't kill -9 a process. so i need to reboot the phone whenever i put an infinite loop in.
they really should have loaded their software on top of android and been done with it. immediate developer support in a slightly better dev environment.
MS and BB are really two companies in th
Re: (Score:1)
they really should have loaded their software on top of android and been done with it. immediate developer support in a slightly better dev environment.
You're either unfamiliar with BlackBerry development or unfamiliar with Android development.
(Android development is a nightmare. WTF was Google thinking?)
Re:250?! (Score:5, Informative)
i can't kill -9 a process. so i need to reboot the phone whenever i put an infinite loop in.
That's because the QNX command for this is slay [qnx.com], which does work and basically does the same thing.
Re: (Score:3)
Why concern ourselves with facts when we can get a good baseless bash on?
32.5 Million Shipments in 2012 (Score:2)
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23946013 [idc.com] by IDC's last figures 32.5Million shiments. Blackberry is suffering right now, but they are sill selling lots of phones. The trend is the real problem...its down.
Re: (Score:1)
omg. a tuppe666 post that isn't attacking Apple or cheerleading Google. are you sick bro? Did your Chromebook Pixel break?
Re: (Score:2)
Lucky losers (Score:2)
250 got out with their lives and only lost their jobs
they're being truthful (Score:4)
It is efficiency. They're cutting testing & qa staff. That's what customers are for!
I am going to go out on a limb here. (Score:1)
Lemme guess, (Score:3)
the CEO got a bonus for coming up with the idea.
Lisette? (Score:1)
Suddenly this makes this Lisette all hot, I am feeling an irresistible urge to fuck her.
Outsource! (Score:2)
Heck, BB can just get the carriers to do product testing.
Oh wait. That would require carriers who want the product badly enough. So, that's Rogers. Anybody else? Zimbabwe Mobile? Dunno.
Actually slashing R&D is what you do when you are out of ideas and plan to rebrand as something that doesn't need R&D. Like just becoming an App. Or a sub-brand, like Sony Experia Zeta 99 powered by Blackberry. Kinda like the Facebook phone. And that worked out just fine, right?
Dice.com opinion piece? (Score:2)
A dice.com opinion piece with clickbait headline? That's what we're getting here alongside our daily ration of infoworld articles?
I really need to take my own advice and not bother coming back - but somehow, I still end up doing it every week or two.
Focus, Blackberry (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently BB devices were mostly popular with suits in the US, but overseas their low-end models were really popular with teens. Probably for the same reason the Sidekick used to be; hardware keyboard and good instant messaging software.
Alicia Keys (Score:2)