BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) has announced to loss of 2,000 jobs, around 10% of its total workforce, in what the company described as a, "cost optimisation program".
The Canadian mobile firm has also announced changes to its senior management team. COO Don Morrison, who has been on medical leave since June this year, has retired and will not return to the company, RIM said. Jim Rowan will take on the expanded role of COO, operations, while Thorsten Heins will also see his role expanded to COO, Product and Sales.
CIO Robin Bienfait will see her role expand to include responsibility for the Enterprise Business Unit. Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, who currently share the CEO and chairman roles, are not impacted by the management re-jig despite calls from shareholders for a review into senior management at RIM.
In terms of its job losses, RIM will begin notifying affected workers this week in North America and in other geographies at a later date. The move will bring its total workforce down to around 17,000.
"The workforce reduction is believed to be a prudent and necessary step for the long term success of the company and it follows an extended period of rapid growth within the company whereby the workforce had nearly quadrupled in the last five years alone," RIM said in a statement.
"The changes are intended to create greater alignment of the organization and to streamline RIM’s operations in order to better position the company for future growth and profitability," the statement added.
RIM has struggled in recent years to compete with Apple and Android mobile devices. Although devices shipped in the last quarter grew 18% it failed to meet its own targets and is not performing as well as rivals in the booming smartphone space.
Its PlayBook tablet – designed as a rival to Apple’s iPad – has met with generally negative reviews and slow sales, according to reports.
