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Company lays off 4,500 employees - nearly 40% of workforce - and warns of huge quarterly lossOttawa - At their peak, just a few years ago, BlackBerry smartphones were symbols of corporate and political power.迷你倉最平 When United States President Barack Obama took office, he made keeping his BlackBerry a personal priority, and when BlackBerry service had a hiccup, so did business on Wall Street.But after being upstaged time and again by industry rivals, the devices may soon remain only in memories.Last Friday, BlackBerry announced that it would lay off 4,500 employees, nearly 40 per cent of its already reduced workforce. The cut is so deep that some analysts and investors said the company's days as a smartphone maker were effectively over.The company also said it expected to report a quarterly loss of nearly US$1 billion (S$1.25 billion) this week, mainly the result of a write-off of unsold BlackBerry phones, but also because of payments to stop manufacturers and suppliers from adding to the pile.And of its six phones that the company offers, two will be discontinued."This is a recognition that they lost the handset war," said Mr James Gellert, chief executive of Rapid Ratings, an investment risk evaluation firm. "It's certainly a waving of the big white towel."The company revenue was expected to have been US$1.6 billion in the second quarter, almost half of the US$3 billion analysts had anticipated. Sales of phones during that time, it said, totalled 3.7 million. Apple, by comparison, sold 31.2 million iPhones during its last quarter.More alarming to many analysts was BlackBerry's announcement that it had used about US$500 million in cash to stay operating during the last quarter, lowering its cash holdings to US$2.6 billion. Although the company has been losing market share for several years, it had managed to increase its cash holdings.Four years ago, BlackBerry had 51 per cent of the North American smartphone market. But the fast-changing industry, and in particular phones from Apple and Samsung, left the company behind."The rest of the smartphone world is racing ahead at top speed while we have BlackBerry stuttering to a stop," said Mr Michael Gikas, the senior editor for electronics at Consumer Reports.BlackBerry's executives initially looked down on the move to making smartphones into pocket-size computers, which was pioneered by Appl迷你倉's iPhone. But consumers preferred smartphones with full touch screens, multiple cameras and, most important, hundreds of thousands of apps. BlackBerry's devices largely stayed the same, often with half-screens and a physical keyboard, and its initial attempts at touch-screen phones were technological failures.In January, the company introduced the BlackBerry 10 line of phones, which were based around an entirely new operating system of the same name and offered hardware features similar to devices from the market leaders.But the new devices were unable to break the grip of Apple and Samsung. When the latest flagship phone in the line, the Z30, was announced last week, it caused hardly a ripple. Even BlackBerry seemed to have given up. Unlike with other phones in the series, the Z30 release came without any kind of public or flashy demonstration.The failure of the BlackBerry 10 line of phones quickly led to speculation that the company, like Palm before it, would be broken apart and perhaps gradually disappear, at best lingering as little more than a brand name. This summer, BlackBerry announced that it was undertaking its second strategic review in less than a year. Unlike the earlier one, however, BlackBerry's executives did not rule out a sale of the company.All of the uncertainty surrounding the company, several analysts said, probably made the company's problems even worse during the last quarter. Corporate and government information technology departments have held back on committing to BlackBerry 10 phones and, more important for BlackBerry, the corporate server software that supports them.Consumers are often less sensitive to corporate problems. But Mr Keith Lam, a managing partner at Red Sky Capital Management in Toronto, said carriers appeared to be cutting back their BlackBerry 10 inventory to avoid being saddled with unwanted phones and reducing display space and promotions for the devices in stores.If, as many expect, BlackBerry is no longer in the handset business, the question becomes what remains of value to a potential investor.Mr Mike Lazaridis, the co-founder of BlackBerry who stepped down as co-chief executive in 2011, has reached out to private equity firms about a possible bid for the troubled company. But a private company would be up against some of the largest companies in the world, like Apple.New York Times儲存