Hasta La Gadget!

Motorola is “ready to go on a hiring spree” in Waterloo, the home of BlackBerry HQ, according to a new report from the Financial Post. The Google-owned maker of smartphones already has an existing, small office in the heart of one of Canada’s most important tech hubs, but plans to build a proper, full-fledged engineering team in the area.

BlackBerry is going to be shedding a lot of talent, very quickly, as it plans to lay off around 4,500 people in the near future. Motorola wouldn’t tell the FP that those layoffs specifically had anything to do with its decision to expand in Waterloo, but did comment that “it’s not always easy to find places that have significant tech talent in a variety of areas, but especially mobile.” Given BlackBerry’s focus, it’s very likely he’s referring to the abundance of engineers located in the region with smartphone experience.

Waterloo is already an area with high demand for engineering talent. The startup ecosystem in the region is vibrant, and those young companies all need engineers to build their products. VC investment is rolling in for companies in the area, which means more competition than ever for graduates of the University of Waterloo, one of the most highly respected engineering schools in the world. Other sizeable tech companies have also expressed newfound interest in the area, with Square announcing just last week it would open offices in BlackBerry’s backyard.

Google has other interests in the area, too. Its office in Waterloo has contributed considerably to the development of Chrome and Chrome OS, and there’s a specific focus on mobile for its team there, including the mobile counterparts of Gmail and Google Docs. Considering the Google Waterloo team’s focus on mobile software, it makes sense that Google would want its Motorola mobile hardware unit nearby.

BlackBerry and its ongoing demise (yes, I’m totally comfortable calling it that at this point) is not going to be a great thing for the Waterloo region by any means, and a lot of people are going to suffer as a result of the company’s collapse. But this move by Motorola shows that the core of what makes it such a successful tech hub remains intact, and will call other big players to fill the void the smartphone pioneer is leaving behind.

BlackBerry hasn’t been hiding the fact that it’s cutting back on its workforce, but a new report from The Wall Street Journal today suggests that another particularly big round of layoffs could be in store. Citing people familiar with the matter, the paper says that the company is preparing to cut up to 40 percent of its workforce by the end of the year, with the layoffs expected to “cut across all departments” and “occur in waves.” As the WSJ notes, the most recent tally of employees the company has disclosed is 12,700, which is already down from 17,000 two years ago.

This latest news also comes after an report earlier this month that at least some BlackBerry board members are pushing for a speedy sale of the company, which reportedly could happen as early as November. For its part, BlackBerry isn’t commenting on the specific number of layoffs, telling the WSJ only that “organizational moves will continue to occur to ensure we have the right people in the right roles to drive new opportunities in mobile computing.”

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry

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Source: The Wall Street Journal

Today, Renesas is announcing that it’s going to “discontinue” the wireless unit it acquired from Nokia. Finnish state media outlet YLE is reporting that all 808 of Renesas’ employees in Finland will be let go, of which more than two-thirds are located in the northern city of Oulu. Three years ago, Nokia decided to focus on designing and manufacturing mobile phones. It sold its wireless modem division to the Japanese semiconductor firm Renesas for roughly $200 million. The idea was, with wireless modem R&D moved out of the way, the company could concentrate on developing blockbuster handsets.

Unfortunately, the sale took place half a year before Android phones outsold Symbian devices for the first time and Nokia announced that it was going to switch to Windows Phone — this put Renesas in the awkward position of being a modem supplier to a company with collapsing sales. Nokia Siemens Networks has large offices in the same city where most of Renesas’ employees are located. Though, engineers looking for a change of scenery might want to head south to Espoo where Samsung just opened its own R&D center.

Filed under: Nokia

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Source: The Wall Street Journal, YLE

Fisker Automotive has been seeing its troubles go from bad to worse, and its now announced its most drastic steps yet to keep the company afloat. In a statement released this afternoon, the company confirmed that it is making a “significant reduction” in its workforce, which it says will ultimately leave it with approximately 25 percent of its employees — Bloomberg pegs the number of layoffs at about 160 based on its sources, down from the 200 it employed as of last week. Fisker’s statement also notes that the company is continuing its efforts to secure a strategic alliance or partnership, but says it had reached the point where layoffs became unavoidable. As Bloomberg mentions in its report, Fisker has to date only sold 2,500 of its electric vehicles, which have been beset by delays and recalls in recent years.

Filed under: Transportation

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Source: Bloomberg, Autoblog

It’s never easy to share news of job losses, but that’s the state of things at T-Mobile’s US headquarters in Bellevue, Wash. Today, the carrier confirmed to us that layoffs are currently underway, which comes in advance of the UnCarrier’s merger with MetroPCS. While T-Mobile representatives withheld specifics, The Seattle Times reports that somewhere between 200 and 300 employees have been laid off, whose jobs range from administrative assistants to senior vice presidents. This news follows reports of job cuts earlier this month, which are said to have affected more than 100 people in the marketing department and other divisions. For its part, T-Mobile suggests the decision was made in order to better focus its resources, which seems plausible, given its scrappy new approach in the mobile industry. It’s certainly a bitter pill to swallow, but you’ll find the carrier’s statement after the break.

Filed under: Wireless, Mobile, T-Mobile

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Source: The Seattle Times (1), (2)