More changes are afoot at BlackBerry. The company yesterday confirmed that Richard Piasentin, the company’s vice president for US sales, had been fired and today announced two more executive departures. Of concern perhaps is that both were described as having played “significant roles” in the launch of BlackBerry 10 and the first devices to use the new operating system.
The two executives to leave are T.A. McCann, the company’s vice-president of social networks, and Marc Gingras who led development of the BlackBerry 10 e-mail, calendar and contacts applications along with their integration into BlackBerry Hub. Both men left BlackBerry within the last month. Their departures were described as amicable.
Rumours yesterday suggested that BlackBerry was also considering further job cuts as it continues to try to turn its fortunes around.
Despite the additional bad news, the rest of the year is shaping up to be exciting for BlackBerry. It will launch at least one more BlackBerry 10 device, likely the rumoured new flagship BlackBerry A10 smartphone, later this year along with the BlackBerry 7-powered 9720 for emerging markets. It will also launch BBM on both the Android and iPhone platforms later this summer.
Source : The Globe and Mail