BlackBerry to lay off 300 in Waterloo
Shares rise on news of potential buyers
BlackBerry Ltd. is laying off 300 employees from its Waterloo, Ont., headquarters this week, the first round of cuts as the struggling smartphone maker looks to reduce its worldwide staff by 4,500.
The company has cut more than 7,000 jobs from its ranks since 2011 and hundreds more in recent months, but this latest round is an attempt by blackberry to stay alive after posting a nearly $1-billion loss, largely due to tepid interest in its latest line of blackberry 10 smartphones.
“As previously mentioned, we are in a period of transition and we must focus on enhancing our financial results to be in a better position to compete in this current mobile environment,” said a blackberry spokesperson in an emailed statement.
“As such, blackberry has implemented an ongoing workforce reduc- tion that will impact approximately 4,500 employees globally over the next three quarters. This week’s reduction includes approximately 300 employees in Waterloo.”
blackberry did not offer further details, but a source says the first layoffs have affected a number of departments on Monday, including enterprise and design.
“We recognize our local employees’
We will do everything in our power to treat our employees with compassion
hard work on behalf of our company and the difficulty of this news,” blackberry said in a statement. “And we will do everything in our power to treat our employees with compassion, while offering support during this time of transition.”
Shares of blackberry rose as much as 4% on Monday, due to reports that the smartphone maker was in talks with cisco Systems, Google Inc., and SAP to sell all, or parts of itself, reuters reported. Shares of blackberry closed at uS$7.97 on the Nasdaq Monday.
blackberry has already struck a tentative uS$4.7-billion deal — at $9 per share — with a consortium lead by Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., the company’s largest single shareholder. but the deal is subject to financing, and due diligence, and is far from a done deal.
The smartphone maker is also reportedly seeking preliminary expressions of interest from other potential strategic buyers, which include Intel corp. and Asian technology companies LG and Samsung electronics co., by early this week, reuters reported citing sources.
Meanwhile, as blackberry struggles to compete in the smartphone arena it pioneered, some of its rivals have announced in recent weeks a larger presence in Waterloo, Ont. — positioning themselves to snap up the technology talent blackberry sheds.
Google’s smartphone manufacturer Motorola Mobility recently revealed its plans to establish a new engineering office in Kitchener-Waterloo, a roughly 10-minute drive away from the blackberry campus. As well, Google announced that Waterloo’s communitech startup incubator was selected to become one of seven North American hubs to join the Google for entrepreneurs Tech Hub Network.
And Square, a mobile-payments startup launched by Twitter Inc.’s founder Jack dorsey, also plans to establish an engineering office in Waterloo.