RIM will be handing out up to 3,000 pink slips this month. Of the estimated 8,000 employees currently working for them, people working on the BB10 project are “safe.”
“These difficult changes are necessary as we drive a program to reduce our operating expenditure by over $1 billion,” according to a statement from RIM to the Globe and Mail.
I see a tiny ray of hope in all of this. Those people leaving RIM and entering the job market will be bringing their talents and experience from one of the world's most successful mobile development companies ever to the rest of us.
RIM was THE company to work for only a few years ago
Remember when Blackberrys were cool and we called them “Crackberrys?” Let's look at some of the great things RIM and the people that work for RIM have done for the Waterloo region and our entire economy.
- Invented push email and brought us the top business smart phone in the world
- Spawned a tech hub in the Waterloo region with more than 850 tech firms and 550 tech startups
- Waterloo is now the home of notable incubators such as Velocity, Hyperdrive and the Accelerator Centre
- RIM is Canada's largest research and development community, including the Perimeter Institute
Plus, they developed a BB operating system that was so secure that it was the only one Barack Obama was allowed to carry.