RIM eying sale of corporate jets

Struggling Canadian smartphone vendor RIM is considering selling its corporate jets, according to an article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
 
Yes, that’s right, RIM – the company that saw revenues fall by a third in its recent financial quarter and that is shedding staff like they’re going out of fashion – has two private jets.
 
When it comes to ‘cost cutting’ shouldn’t these luxury items have been top of the list?
 
The Guardian reports the firm has a nine-seater and a 14-seater Dassault jet, the former of which could be worth between $6 million (€4.9 million) and $7 million in the used jet lot. It also pays ground crew and maintenance costs on the aircraft, though no figure was placed on how much that eats into its earnings.
 
It makes you wonder just how serious the firm is about cutting costs, if the executive team would rather lay off thousands of people than get rid of their toys. Perhaps if it had acted sooner, its latest operating system – which is already being hailed as excellent by some analysts I’ve spoken to – wouldn’t have been delayed until 2013 and the vendor could have begun a fightback in the smartphone space rather than risk slipping into oblivion.