RIM rumored to lay off 2,000 more workers soon

RIM rumored to lay off 2,000 more workers soon
neowin.net

IMHO, these layoffs are long overdue. RIM has been growing for years under the BlackBerry OS and failed to adapt to a changing marketplace. The iPhone really blew them out of the water, and the BlackBerry Storm was a terrible attempt to try to answer that threat. The BlackBerry Java OS is old, dated, and does not have the infrastructure needed to compete in the marketplace of 5 years ago, let alone today.

That's all changing with the adoption of the QNX operating system on the BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry 10. People may lament the mismanagement of the launch of the PlayBook, and I would mostly tend to agree. However, RIM has delivered a solid base from which to build upon, and they're doing all of the right things. To this day, we're still figuring out all of the nuances of the OS and what can be done with it. Quite simply, QNX is fast, secure, and well-engineered. IMHO, it is leaps and bounds ahead of what iOS or even Android are capable of.

These changes are also being reflected at RIM itself. Their acquisition of QNX several years back was a masterful move. And even though RIM bought QNX, the culture seems to becoming more QNX-like, which is a great thing. (It's almost like a reverse-takeover.) They're adopting many of the lean startup methods in driving their products forward. One can point to the delivery of Dev Alpha prototypes to developers back in early May. Put out a minimum viable product to your early adopters to gather feedback and figure out what to build next. As developers, we have the opportunity to have a platform built to our needs, rather than the other way around. It smacks of lean startup methodologies.

My rambling does have a point: these layoffs are likely in the old and slow departments of RIM's past, related to the older BBOS. BBOS is going into maintenance mode, as it seems like they are no longer developing new features for it and are reserving it for their budget devices. While layoffs always suck because people are losing their livelihood, I think it's a great move on RIM's part to become leaner and more agile. They have the capability to deliver something truly wonderful with BlackBerry 10. The building blocks are all there. I'm personally hopeful they will execute it well, because that's ultimately what will determine their fate, whether they end up like Palm or like Apple. Only time will tell.

I'm looking forward to BB10, and plan to buy one when they are released in October. I hope they make the ship date.

Regarding the Playbook botch, I read recently that the reason why the Playbook had to be tethered to a phone to get email and BBM was because the RIM infrastructure only supported mapping an email account to one PIN. Have they corrected this? I understand if you're not able to comment for legal reasons.

Can you tell us more about the advantages of QNX over iOS and Android? Have you tried the Cascade SDK? Did you get your hands on the Dev Alpha?

Oh my god. I just realized what it feels like to be a fanboi. Oh well, RIM needs love too!