BlackBerry just “gutted” its salesforce, this source says

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• This just further enforces that the company is readying itself to go private or get sold.

• Either part of Phase 2 of the plan or the start of Phase 3. Blackberry doing exactly what they said they would do. JMHO

• The sales team hasn't, apparently, being doing their job.

  • Apparently? No, more like evidently.

  • Actually, at its core, it's the same sales team from 4 years ago when BB was setting record after record of growth and profits. The sales force did not suddenly become incompetent, the product/company failed to keep up with competition and the changing marketplace. Same is true for Ericsson (in the late 90s), Motorola, Nokia, HTC and a boatload of lesser players.

    • On the contrary, the last four years have seen a steep decline in Blackberry numbers sold and revenue and earnings generated. The sales team hasn't been doing its job for the last four years. Evidently.

      • Perhaps sales hasn't been doing a stellar job, but it is tough to sell a horse and cart when your competitors are offering a space ship for the same price.

        • @KidWUnder - that is probably one of the best quotes in respect of sales that I have heard in a long time!!! - raised a smile in our office - may i requote on twitter (acknowledging you also?)

        • Sure thing, I just followed @profacademy on twitter myself. @mattvendramini

        • Thanks - just found you on Twitter also :-)

        • Actually, I would characterize it just the opposite, BB was the space ship, everybody else was the horse and buggy.... that's all consumers really wanted was a horse and buggy, all the space-age tech that BB had in their phone wasn't needed by consumers, they couldn't have cared less..... having a flashlight app was more important to them...

        • Nice try.. but while encryption and keyboards were (somewhat) important to some business customers, consumers started to enjoy enabled web apps, a laptop-like browsing speed and efficiency, an infinitely better GPS experience and yes, a lot of "fun" apps that acted as the cherry on top. I went from the Curve, to the Bold, to the iphone. When I got my iphone it felt like my Bold was 10-15 years behind. Samsung's product also blew BB out of the water. A typical RIM response would be "It's not us who failed to listen to consumers and stop innovating, it is the people's fault for not appreciating us enough."

• I won't sleep well if I was short. Glad I covered my shorts under $10 and bought a truck load of commons and cheap calls when BlackBerry was under $9. Shorts in a world of hurt.

• If they really did gut the sales force, this is not prep for going private. It's prep for getting out of smartphones altogether. So I'm very curious to what degree they cut, and why. You simply can't run a business like this without a sales force.

  • I agree with you that it is prep for getting out of smartphones, however the software and services part of BlackBerry will most likely be preserved through a LBO. Therefore, a sale of the hardware business (coupled with a possible license of BB10) and a leveraged buyout for the software and services (QNX, BB10, BBM, BES, etc). In my opinion of course.

  • Any single event is going to be reported, analysed, expanded, guessed ...
    Has the "source" been fired too ?
    The least we can say is that the salesforces have not been performing well ... should we have to necessarily mix it with current "strategic opportunities" ?

    That's the magic of "journalism" ...

    Bellow is the missing quote, you'll find in the WSJ's original article. Please note the "a small number of employees" that turns out to : "half of the salesforce". The least a copycat journalist can do is to balance his gloom with some official statements.
    Welcome to the help-me-I'm-short news ...

    “I can confirm a small number of employees were laid off today,” a company spokesman said, without providing additional details.

    http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/09/09/blackberry-lays-off-dozens-of-us-sales-staff/

    • Would like also to make some memory work here. Remember Heins speech in last E.R about unproductive "falling heads". While we have no details that's certainly something me can keep in mind (headcount seems to be 100 in Textas with underperforming location, says the *rumor*).

• BlackBerry Patents – Another Hi-Tech Treasure Trove?

  http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/resources/blog/blackberry-patents-another-hi-tech-treasure-trove-part-one/

• There are only three Canadians and one Nigerian who will notice or care that Blackberry is going away. The company are redundant.

• My guess is that BlackBerry has a buyer in mind, and they are currently solving operational challenges to integrating a new team. I am assuming, of course, that the buyer wants to avoid duplication of services and has a team of dedicated BDs and account managers ready to take-over existing contracts.

• Too bad, they so blew it.

• liked this article. Blackberry is in crisis because of its management. At every step the managers who are for long should be changed or should be retrenched. They dont know the difference between senior and junior. The managers who are there for very long time are just like a frog in a small pond.