BlackBerry confirmed that it laid off 200 employees in its headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, and also in Florida. The company said in a statement provided to media outlets including the New York Times that "we remain focused on driving efficiencies across our global workforce. This means finding new ways to enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities, while driving toward sustainable profitability across all parts of our business."
The company didn't provide many details on the action, but the layoffs likely reflect BlackBerry's continued withdrawal from the smartphone manufacturing business. BlackBerry last year released its first phone running Google's Android operating system, the Priv, a dramatic move away from building phones running its BlackBerry 10 operating system. Although BlackBerry CEO John Chen has promised to continue to support BlackBerry 10, many expect the company to continue to move away from the costly business of making its own smartphones and smarpthone operating system. Article