Research In Motion said it will cut about 2,000 jobs, or 11 percent of it workforce, and the severance payout is not included its second-quarter and full year outlook.
The BlackBerry maker also said its Chief Operating Officer Don Morrison is planning to retire and Thorsten Heins is taking on the expanded role of COO, product and sales.
RIM said the workers affected by the cuts will receive severance packages and outplacement support.
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Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM has been hurt by product delays and competition from Apple Inc.'s iPhone and smartphones that run Google Inc.'s Android operating system.
One analyst said the job cuts were slightly deeper than expected, but were key to RIM's recovery from a slump triggered by stiff competition from Apple Inc and Google Inc.
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"This is not totally unexpected. I think the size of (the cuts) is a little bit bigger than what they were intimating before," said Jefferies & Co analyst Peter Misek. "I think this is obviously realigning the cost structure to a new growth, or sales reality."
Although its Blackberrys have dominated the corporate smartphone market, RIM has not been able to translate this success to the broader consumer market, where the iPhone and Android phones reign. The launch of its PlayBook tablet computer, meanwhile, wasn't as successful as the company had hoped.
RIM reported a 10 percent drop in its fiscal first-quarter earnings in June and gave an outlook for the year that was well below what analysts had expected.















