Blackberry Maker ‘Research in Motion’ Fires 2,000 Employees

Research In Motion, manufacturers of the Blackberry phones and tablet line of devices has announced the firing of 2,000 employees, approximately 11% of the company’s overall workforce.

The company has also announced that they will reorganize their executives in order to better compete with Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) based mobile devices.

The company cut their work force to approximately 17,000 employees after their quarterly revenue fell by 12%, however the company says it’s not that revenue fall but rather due to overestimating how many workers they would need to keep the company profitable during their last productivity boom.

In a RIM statement executives said:

“[The layoffs are] believed to be a prudent and necessary step for the long-term success of the company and… [follow] an extended period of rapid growth within the company whereby the workforce had nearly quadrupled in the last five years alone.”

At this time Research in Motion has done very little to lay out a detailed plan of their actions for investors. The company has recently jumped from the Blackberry line of devices to the Playbook Tablet and now they are rumored to be working on a competing TV box which would play off the Apple TV setup. While the company continues to expand their product lines many users still find their Mobile OS and device designs to be stuck in the mid 2000’s, making them a less desirable smartphone for many users. Throw in the fact that Google and Apple have begun offering more robust email options for their devices and the line between business and consumer devices has become thin at best, causing sales slips for Blackberry devices.