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Saturday, September 21, 2013

BlackBerry warns of major job cuts and operating loss

Yesterday BlackBerry announced its preliminary quarterly results and also provided an update on its plans for the business.

It says it’s expecting to make a loss of between $950 million to $995 million (up to £621 million) in the past quarter (Q2 of its 2014 financial year), with most of this value being written-off due to poor sales of the Z10 smartphone. Revenue was $1.6 billion.

Overall, 3.7 million BlackBerry phones were shipped in June, July and August, with approximately 5.9 million handsets sold to end-users.

In addition, restructuring plans will see staff numbers being cut by around 4,500 employees; approximately 40% of the company workforce. It’s part of a plan to cut operating expenditure by 50% and will result in a total workforce of 7,000 full-time staff.

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While BlackBerry’s management continues to consider joint ventures, partnerships or even a sale of the company, it’s also going to cut back on the number of devices it offers. It’s refocusing on the enterprise and ‘prosumer’ market with just 2 high-end devices and 2 entry-level devices. The BlackBerry Z10 - launched earlier this year as the first device running the BlackBerry 10 operating system - will be repositioned as an entry-level phone.

Thorsten Heins, President and Chief Executive Officer of BlackBerry, said “We are implementing the difficult, but necessary operational changes announced today to address our position in a maturing and more competitive industry, and to drive the company toward profitability.  Going forward, we plan to refocus our offering on our end-to-end solution of hardware, software and services for enterprises and the productive, professional end user. This puts us squarely on target with the customers that helped build BlackBerry into the leading brand today for enterprise security, manageability and reliability.”

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Opinion Articles

Why a mobile TV service is just like a zombie

Mark Bridge writes:

Here in the UK, we’re struggling a bit with mobile TV. Which made me wonder what the problem really was. Well, after a long evening with the finest stilton and the cheapest port, the answer came to me in a dream. A mobile TV service is just like the lurching, drooling nightmare creatures that appear in every zombie film. And once consumers understand zombies, they’ll understand the problems with mobile TV. Let me explain.

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Selling your way out of a recession? Of course you can!

Iain Graham writes:

Everybody these days (apart from a lucky few!) is suffering from a lack of business or reduced sales due to the current 'downturn in the economic climate'. In my opinion, this is the time when sales people should stand up and be counted!

No, I don't mean the hard nosed, foot in the door double-glazing, second-hand car or mobile phone types (no offence!), I mean EVERYONE! Selling is a concept as much as it is a profession.

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Mobile & Contactless Payments

James Rosewell offers his opinion on the current state of mobile and contactless payments.

The banking and mobile industries have big plans for Near Field Communication (NFC) as the mobile payment mechanism of the future. Barclaycard has been leading the way from the credit card sector forming a partnership with Orange, having previously worked with O2, and running a catchy TV advert prompting contactless cards using VISA’s paywave system.

However the reality of NFC payments appears a lot further away. The Point of Sale (POS) technology appears to be badly deployed by some of the first-phase retailers mainly made up of low-value high-volume businesses like coffee shops, fast food outlets and newsagents.

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Insecure Mobile Browsers

James Rosewell writes: I note with interest Barclays mobile on-line banking home page extolling the safety of mobile banking whilst claiming it’s as secure as their non-mobile equivalent. This is on the same page that recommends customers use Opera Mini to access Barclays mobile on-line banking.

Yet following the link to the operamini.com web site and looking at the help section we can read Opera’s answer to the question “Is there any end-to-end security between my handset and — for example — paypal.com or my bank?” and the answer is “No. If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full Web browser such as Opera Mobile.”

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