Stephen Elop surely has a good reason to smile these days. According to a report in The New York Times, Nokia’s former CEO will make more than $25 million in his return to Microsoft after Nokia’s acquisition deal closes.
Mr. Elop’s payout will be composed of salary, management incentives, and stock awards. The latter make for the bulk of the $25+ million he will take home. Microsoft will cover 70% of the payment, while the rest will come from Nokia.
Elop vacated his post as Nokia CEO and President and took a role in the Finnish company as an executive vice-president. He will retain this position until the closing of Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia. Afterwards, Nokia’s former chief executive will return to Redmond as head of the expanded devices division.
The massive payout marks a highly profitable three-year tenure in Nokia for Stephen Elop. The executive took $6.2 million when he joined the company three years ago.
The secret is in the alarm clock app through Control Center
While iOS 7 gave Apple's mobile operating system a new paint job, but it still suffers from an age-old problem: another lockscreen glitch that could give someone unwanted access to your device.
The iOS 7 bug allows a person with physical access to your phone to a limited amount of data, even when the four-digit passcode is enabled.
This only happens when Apple's new Control Center feature is accessible in the locked state, as first reported on by Forbes.
But since Control Center can be launched in this locked state by default, most people will be vulnerable, even iPhone 5S owners with their fancy fingerprint sensor.
How it's done
Testing it out, we found that launching the alarm clock app, holding down the sleep button and then canceling powering down the phone frees an attacker up to multitasking their way into the phone. All they have to do is press the home button twice.
This makes a limited number of apps like Mail, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr are accessible.
Here's how to fix the issue for now
Temporary fix
While Apple works to fix this iOS 7 glitch, worried users can remedy the Control Center vulnerability by disabling the new feature's use in the lockscreen.
Navigating to the settings menu, selecting Control Center and and turning off "Access to Lock Screen" prevents this new iOS 7 exploit.
Despite a recent spate of bullishness, Microsoft has seemingly conceded what the rest of the tech world has known for a long time: Windows Phone is still miles away from competing with iOS and Android.
During a financial analyst meeting on Thursday, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner reportedly called the OS a 'distant third' to the Apple and Google-made smartphone software.
According Microsoft blogger Paul Thurrott, who was in on the call, Turner said there was still 'lots of work to do' before the big two can become a big three.
Turner also admitted that Microsoft had endured some teething problems during its transition from a software company into the PC and tablet hardware market.
In particular, Microsoft annoyed its manufacturing partners by launching the Surface tablets to showcase its new Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems
Thurrott tweeted: "Turner: OEM channel had "consternation" when MS entered the HW business with Surface."
We can imagine those same manufacturers were probably more upset with Windows RT falling flat on its face than anything else.
The release of Apple's iOS 7 mobile software saw web traffic reach unprecedented levels in the UK on Wednesday night.
The 750MB download (1.4GB for iPad) became available at 6pm on Wednesday, causing an instant spike in web activity, which peaked at around 9:30pm.
According to data from the London Network Access Point company, data consumption doubled from 30 gigabits per second before the software became available and 60 gigabits per second at 9:30pm.
The peak is likely to have been delayed until later in the evening due to the problems some users experienced when initially attempting to download the software from Apple's besieged servers.
Speedy adoption
Speaking to the Guardian, BT Retail said its traffic levels had never been higher, claiming "within 20 minutes of the launch traffic grew over 200 gigabits per second."
Various estimates suggest that at least a third all compatible iOS devices are already running the new, re-imagined software just 24 hours after it became available.
Mobile web and app analytics firm Mixpanel has been monitoring the adoption of iOS 7 via the traffic arriving at its servers. At the time of writing that figure had reached over 41 per cent.
The company even says traffic from iOS 7 devices could overtake iOS 6 by the time the sun sets on Friday.
iOS 7 made 18 percent of iOS users' days brighter yesterday
iOS 7 is one of the biggest changes yet for Apple's mobile operating system, but based on the day one adoption numbers it seems it paid off.
Monitoring from ad network Chitika found that on Sept. 18, the first day that iOS 7 was widely available, 18.2 percent of iOS devices that accessed the sites it tracks in North America (the U.S. and Canada) were already running the new OS version.
In comparison, iOS 6 was present on just under 15 percent of the iOS devices Chitika detected during its first 24 hours a year ago.
Granted, iOS 6 had its problems, and the publicity for iOS 7 so far has been almost entirely positive.
Positive changes
For one thing, iOS 7 finally lets users tuck that worthless Newsstand app away into a folder where it can't offend anyone's eyes anymore.
Beyond that the OS's aesthetic is drastically altered, with new flattened, candy-colored app icons taking the place of the old ones.
Altered animations for unlocking devices and opening apps making things prettier, and new functions like the control panel let iOS 7 users adjust more options, like brightness, airplane mode, and bluetooth, on the fly (yes, like Android).
Read TechRadar's full iOS 7 review for the complete run down of every new feature and change.
O2 customers hoping to snap up a new iPhone 5S when it goes on sale in the UK on Friday, will not be able to do so from the network's retail stores around the country.
Amid reports claiming the Touch ID-enabled device will be in seriously short supply, O2 confirmed it will only be available to order in store, over the phone and online from 8am on Friday.
The network tweeted on Thursday afternoon: "Nearly #O2iPhone Friday! Get 5c in store & order 5s online & on phone. No 5s in stores but they'll order for you and say when it's in."
In even less optimistic news, the company said it does not expect to fulfil orders made in store for a whopping 3-6 weeks.
In a statement O2 told Pocket-Lint: "We won't have iPhone 5S stock in stores to sell but customers will be able to place their order with us in store. They can also order online or over the phone. If customers are in store they'll be able to get a demo of the phone and place their order with the help of one of our store advisers.
"We anticipate that orders made in our stores for the 5S will be available to collect at the store in three to six weeks. The customer will receive a text when their handset is ready for collection."
It has been rumoured since Apple launched the device during a keynote address on September 10 that the iPhone 5S wouldn't be as readily available as in recent years.
This was illustrated by Apple's unwillingness to offer the iPhone 5S for pre-order prior to the release date, while reports suggesting poor yields of the fingerprint sensor tech was at fault.
Sources have confirmed to TechRadar that other networks are also struggling for stock, but it appears the best bet to ensure you're carrying an iPhone 5S on Friday night is to join the droves already camped out at Apple Stores. Tomorrow, at least, promises to be more interesting than usual.
Nokia once sat on top of the phone maker heap, but those days are long gone. Though the company still ships oodles of handsets, there's a cautionary tale to be found in its story arc.
Or so that's the thinking of Apple CEO Tim Cook, who in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, offered a pointed remark about its Finnish competitor.
"I think [Nokia] is a reminder to everyone in the business that you have to keep innovating and that to not innovate is to die," Cook said.
Many would argue that Apple has lost it's innovative edge. While the iPhone 5S' Touch ID fingerprint reader, for example, shows a glimmer of technological inspiration, the days of Apple truly wowing us are, like Nokia's dominance, a fading memory.
New vs right
On the flip side, Apple has prided, and marketed, itself as a company that may not be the first to do something, but pulls it off the best.
As software head Craig Federighi said in the same interview, "New? New is easy. Right is hard."
When asked about Apple's stock drop post iPhone 5S/iPhone 5C revealing, Cook said that while he's not happy about it (hear, that investors?), he aims to look at the bigger picture, one not defined by market fluctuations.
"You have to bring yourself back to, 'Are you doing the right things?' And so that's what I focus on, instead of letting somebody else or a thing like the market define how I should feel."
Did Apple do the "right" thing with the iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C and iOS 7, which launched Sept. 18? When the new iPhones go on sale tomorrow, we should have a much clearer idea.
It may have felt like the entire world was trying to download iOS 7 all at once yesterday, but that pales in comparison to the number of mobile apps users will download over the next year or two.
Gartner today announced that annual downloads from mobile app stores will reach 102 billion in 2013, nearly twice the 64 billion users racked up last year.
Mobile app revenue will also increase from $18 million in 2012 to $26 billion this year, although free apps are expected to make up a whopping 91 percent of all downloads.
If that isn't depressing enough news for gamers who prefer to pay up-front for their mobile apps, in-app purchases are forecast to account for 48 percent of all revenue by 2017, an 11 percent increase over last year.
Reaching its peak?
Gartner also predicts in-app purchases will account for 17 percent of developer revenue this year, increasing to a hefty 48 percent over the next four years.
Although free apps currently make up 60 percent of the offerings in Apple's iOS App Store and 80 percent for the Android-based Google Play, the party is expected to plateau after next year.
"We expect strong growth in downloads through 2014, but growth is forecast to slow down a bit in later years. Over time [users] accumulate a portfolio of apps they like and stick to, so there will be moderate numbers of downloads in the later years," explained Gartner research director Sandy Shen.
Gartner's Brian Blau calls in-app purchases "a promising and sustainable monetization method" since users only shell out hard-earned cash when they feel it's worth it, which also offers developers additional incentive to create apps with "good design and performance."
Check out our extensive review of Apple's new iPhone 5S!
Ever since Jolla announced its first-generation smartphone, which was simply called Jolla, it has created a buzz among the tech enthusiasts with its simplicity. Back then, the company did not announce the specifications of the device, but these are no longer a mystery as Jolla has officially announced what's under the hood in its smartphone.
Accordingly, the device will sport a 4.5-inch "Estrade" display with a resolution of 540x960px. The smartphone will pack a punch with a 1.4 GHz dual-core Qualcomm snapdragon processor along with 1 GB of RAM. The Jolla will also features an 8 megapixel AF camera with LED flash, 2 megapixel front facing shooter and 16 GB of internal memory with the ability to expand via microSD card slot.
As we already know, the Jolla smartphone will run on gesture based Sailfish OS and the juice for the device will be provided by a user-replaceable 2,100mAh battery. The smartphone's OS will also be optimized to support Android applications.
The Jolla is currently priced at €399 (about $540) and the company hopes to start shipping the device by the end of the year.
Apple may have launched an iPhone 5C last week but it soon became clear that the C did not stand for 'cheap'.
So what about the "budget iPhone" that so many people were sure was on its way? Nothing. It's set to maintain mythical status forever, by the sounds of things.
Speaking to Business Week on the matter, CEO Tim Cook said, "There's always a large junk part of the market. We're not in the junk business."
Compete like crazy
"There's a segment of the market that really wants a product that does a lot for them, and I want to compete like crazy for those customers," he added.
"I'm not going to lose sleep over that other market, because it's just now who we are."
If Cook had just said all this pre-iPhone 5C, it could have saved us all a lot of heartache.
Want to know what we made of the colourful new iPhone? Check out our iPhone 5C review now.
Last week the New York Times revealed that Nokia has indeed worked on an Android smartphone as an alternative to the Microsoft partnership prior to the acquisition announcement. As it turns out, the Finns haven't completely scraped the Android project and are still working on an Android smartphone.
The report comes from a Weibo account CTechnology, which has generally been a reputable source of leaks from China. we are mentioning China, because this where Nokia has based the R&D of its Android smartphoneр dubbed "Mountain View", more specifically in the Beijing offices of the company.
In fact, the project is so ahead in its development that Foxconn has made and delivered a cool 10,000 "Mountain View" prototype units to date. Moreover, there are still more development that's going around the prototype and Foxconn is continuing its manufacturing. According to the report, the project will continue to live on at least until November. Then, Nokia shareholders are bound to approve or denounce Microsoft's acquisition offer.
As for the "Mountain View" prototype itself, Nokia has based it on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 8225Q chip with the sole intention of the Android smartphone to be affordable. No more information regarding further specifications is available at this point. We wouldn't be surprised if we some of these prototypes leak when, and if, the project gets cancelled.
The Microsoft and Nokia deal, however, is likely to pass and the company's Android initiative is likely to go bite the dust by the end of the year. Here's hoping we at least get to see how the "Mountain View" prototype looks like if the project really does go south.
Control Center now gives you quick access to functions previously hidden in settings
iOS 7 is the biggest change to Apple's iOS since the arrival of apps in 2008. It's brighter, bolder and guaranteed to annoy anyone who thought iOS looked just fine, but there's much more to it than that dramatic new user interface. iOS 7 is packed with new features big and small. These are the highlights.
That new interface
Like it or loathe it, there's no denying that iOS looks very different. It's much more minimalist than before, with a distinctly flat look - check out the new Messages or Mail compared to the iOS 6 versions and the differences are obvious. Apps that haven't been designed for iOS 7 yet are going to look a little bit odd compared to the stark new Apple apps.
A new lock screen
The new lockscreen incorporates parallax effects
The lock screen benefits from a parallax effect: move your phone and your wallpaper appears to move. Where the iOS 6 lock screen has two swipeable bits for unlocking your device or launching the Camera app, iOS 7 has four: unlocking, Camera, and two new swipes: swiping down from the top of the screen to see notifications, and swiping up from the bottom to bring up Control Center. Speaking of which...
Control Center
Control Center is something many iOS users have been clamouring for for ages: instead of wading through endless Settings screens to turn on features such as Airplane Mode, Control Center provides quick access to key features: Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb and Rotation Lock. It also provides media playback controls, Airdrop file sharing, and quick access to the phone's LED light and the Clock, Calculator and Camera apps.
Notifications
Notifications have been given a major revamp: there are now three sections (swipeable left to right) headed Today, All and Missed. Today tells you what's on your schedule and includes cute details such as "it would take you about 9 minutes to drive home right now" and a summary of the weather forecast. All collates notifications of app updates, messages and so on, and as you might expect Missed tracks notifications of missed calls and notifications you didn't deal with. You can customise which apps can access Notifications in the Settings app.
Camera
The Camera app has been dramatically redesigned and offers four kinds of shooting: video, photo, square (for Instagram-style shots) and Pano (for panoramas). You also get Instagram-style filters for adding retro effects.
Photos
The Photos app has been redesigned too, and it can automatically organise your photos into what Apple calls Collections. The feature uses your device's GPS to sort photos not just by date, but by location - and it's smart enough to know the difference between the exhibition centre in one part of a city and the cinema in the city centre. You can also zoom out to see your photos by year, which is handy if you never, ever clear the pictures from your iOS device.
Spotlight search
Spotlight has been moved: to activate it, just pull down in the Home screen.
Safari
The simplified Safari makes for fuss-free browsing
Safari gets a much simpler interface that disappears completely as you scroll through pages, and the interface for switching tabs is more visual (and very similar to the new multitasking interface).
Bookmarks can access shared links from your Twitter feed, the address and search boxes have been combined into a single box, and iCloud Keychain can generate and store passwords and securely store your credit card details too.
You'll have to wait for that last one, though: Apple pulled it from the Gold Master release at the very last minute, and we're expecting it to appear when OS X Mavericks ships.
FaceTime
Good news for fans of FaceTime who'd rather not have, or whose connections aren't good enough for, video: iOS 7 now offers audio-only FaceTime.
Smart Mailboxes and easier mail management
Mail.app doesn't just get a cool new design. It gets some useful features too. Smart Mailboxes enable you to pin frequently-used mail folders for quick access, and swiping right to left on an email header gives you the choice of Trash or More. That latter option gives you Reply, Forward, Flag, Mark as Unread, Junk and Move options.
Multitasking
As with iOS 6 you can force-quit apps by double-tapping the home button to invoke the multitasking view, but in iOS 7 you dismiss them by swiping them upwards. Multitasking has been changed under the hood, too: according to Apple, "iOS 7 learns when you like to use your apps and can update your content before you launch them. So if you tend to check your favorite social app at 9:00 every morning, your feed will be ready and waiting for you."
iTunes Radio
The new iTunes Radio feature will supplement your music library with streaming songs, and if you're an iTunes Match subscriber it'll be ad-free. It'll feature personalised stations based on the music you already listen to, and more than 200 genre-specific stations. Apple promises exclusive previews of some new releases too.
Automatic App Updating
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah once more! Keeping our iOS apps up to date was beginning to feel rather like gardening: time-consuming, tedious and utterly pointless. Now iOS lets apps update themselves, although you can disable the feature if you prefer to keep things manual.
Airdrop
Airdrop makes sharing between iOS devices simpler
Sharing files from iOS devices hasn't been as easy as it could be, which is why many of us use apps such as Dropbox or send photos over email to the person sitting six feet away from us.
Airdrop makes things simpler: if the person you want to share with is nearby and running iOS 7, you'll be able to share photos, videos, contacts or anything else app developers decide to support. You can share one file with lots of people or lots of files with one person, and you can restrict Airdrop to people in your address book or anyone in the vicinity.
Smarter Siri
Siri's had a brain - and a helpfulness - enhancement
Siri can do more in iOS 7 without leaving the app: you can get web results (via Bing, even if you tell Siri to "search the web"), ask questions such as "tell me about [thing]", look for particular people's Twitter tweets and - joy of joys - access key settings, such as Bluetooth and Airplane mode.
More App Store options
The familiar App Store has been given a new look and two new discovery features: Apps Near Me, which shows you the most popular apps downloaded from your current location, and a new Kids category for - you've guessed it - kids' apps.
Activation Lock
iOS 6's Find My Phone features have been enhanced to make criminals' lives more difficult: disabling Find My Phone or erasing the device requires your Apple ID and password, and those ID details are also required to re-activate it even once it has been wiped. Remotely erasing your iPhone doesn't prevent your phone from displaying a custom message of your choice either.
iOS in the car
iOS 7 is ready to work with your car - when your car catches up
It'll be a while before this feature's relevant to many of us, but iOS 7 is designed to integrate with compatible in-car systems for hands-free calling, music, messages and navigation.
Wallpapers and ringtones
Not exactly earth-shattering we know, but some of them are quite nice.
Don't think you'll be doing this to your phone anytime soon
Everyone's been getting pretty darn excited over this whole flexible screen stuff, with many fantasising about roll up smartphones and bendy tablets, but it might be time to bring you all back down to earth.
While the flexible screen industry is likely to take off in a big way in the next few years it won't actually be due to the fact the products they'll sit in will be malleable.
As Giovanni Mancini, E Ink's Director of Product Management, explains it's more about weight and durability.
"We introduced our flexible screen technology, E Ink Mobius, back in May. The idea of Mobius is not that people don't necessarily want to flex their device, but instead ensure it is very light and very rugged," he said.
Flexibility purely incidental
"We've done both research with our direct customers and with end consumers. We actually spent two days in a room with two-way mirrors in NYC where we gave end consumers various products sporting our flexible displays.
"Over 90% of the people we brought into the room said they liked the idea that the devices were rugged and light, but the fact that they flexed was really just incidental."
The technology is already being trailed in Sony's 13.3-inch Digital Paper which sees the Mobius display slide into a slender plastic shell to make it a rigid surface allowing users to write on the screen with a specially engineered stylus.
"It has both capacitive touch and inductive touch, so you can use your fingers or a stylus. You can annotate the same way you do on paper with the stylus," Mancini explains.
"It has one of the better stylus capabilities that you'll see out there, even compared to tablets. This type of device would be very difficult to do with a LCD screen because of the size and the weight - it would be very heavy and very fragile."
"Here we have a device which uses our flex technology but isn't flexible, but it is rugged. You don't have to worry about throwing this into your backpack."
You must conform!
There's obviously an interest in flexible displays when it comes to wearable tech, with us imaging a screen we can wrap around our wrist, but Mancini reckons it's more about conformity than flexibility.
"You really don't want to flex a screen constantly, you just want it to conform to a particular shape and then you want to make it light and rugged."
"There is a company called Central Standard Timing who put together a watch using our 1.3-inch Mobius display, which is the thinnest in the world at 0.8mm thick and it's a band which goes around the wrist.
"You can flex the screen slightly, but it still has a hard shell, so you can flex it to the limits of that shell - just enough to get it round your wrist."
We were shown a prototype from E Ink so show off its watch-sized display and how it could easily fit into a curved chassis thanks to its flexible properties, but the main watch housing couldn't be bent or twisted.
At some point in the future we may well be treated to proper, flexible devices, but for the time being at least it looks like the dream will have to stay in our head.
The jury may still be out on iOS 7's radical redesign - for what it's worth we love it, with a few reservations - but there's no denying that it's the friendliest version and most powerful of iOS yet. But there's more to iOS 7 than headline features such as Control Center, Airdrop and iTunes Radio: some of our favourite improvements are little things that make our everyday lives that little bit more pleasant. These are our favourites - let us know yours in the comments.
1. Camera: shoot in burst mode
The redesigned Camera app has a nifty trick up its sleeve: if you want to shoot in burst mode, taking multiple shots in quick succession, just click and hold the volume-up button.
2. Multitasking: quit multiple apps
You can force-quit several apps at a time
You probably know that you can quit running apps by double-tapping the Home button and flicking the offending app upwards, but you might not have tried it with multiple fingers to force-quit more than one app at a time. We've made it work with three apps on our iPhone, although doing the same on an iPad means getting your nose involved too.
3. Notifications: begone!
When you receive a new notification, you can still swipe right to open the appropriate app - but if you just want rid of it you can now swipe up to hide it.
4. Lock Screen and Home Screen: use panoramic images
You can use static or dynamic images for your Lock Screen and Home Screen wallpapers, but if you prefer you can use a panoramic image instead, so the image moves as your phone does. The image must be saved in your Panoramas album: normal Camera Roll images won't work. Sadly for iPhone 4 owners, this feature is only available in the iPhone 4S onwards (and if you're using or have upgraded from a recent beta, this feature might not work).
5. Phone, FaceTime and Messages: block contacts
You can't make your enemies disappear, but you can stop them calling you
Does someone have your number and you wish they didn't? Successfully avoid exes, creditors and the angry husbands and wives of your lovers with iOS 7's excellent blocking features. Add the number to your Contacts, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap Block This Caller to refuse incoming calls, messages (including SMS and MMS) and FaceTime calls.
6. Messages: see the timestamps
iOS 7 likes to keep things nice and minimalist, but if key information isn't visible there's a good chance it's just a swipe away - so for example in Messages, you won't see timestamps against each SMS, MMS or iMessage. Want to know when they were sent? Swipe left.
7. Apps: swipe backwards
This little tip is a handy time-saver: when you're finished reading an email or message, or fiddling with Settings, or exploring a Music playlist, swipe backwards to return to the previous page. If you're at the first level (such as your list of mailboxes in Mail, or the first Settings screen) nothing will happen.
8. Location Services: see where you've been
iOS 7 keeps an eye on where you go to help it personalise features such as the Notification Center, and to help improve the accuracy of Maps. If you fancy a look you'll find it in Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Frequent Locations. You'll see a list and a map, with blue circles showing where you've been and when. You can clear the history from this page, and if you think it's a little creepy you can turn it off from the System Services page.
9. Newsstand: put it away!
Finally, you can tidy away Newsstand
We like Newsstand, but we don't like the way it can't be stuck in a folder like Apple's other stock apps. Hallelujah for iOS 7, then, because at last that absurd restriction has been removed.
10 . Settings: make iOS 7 easier on the eye
Take the edge of iOS 7's brightness with the display options
We like the new interface, but it isn't for everyone. If you have problems with your sight or just want to make iOS more legible, you'll find some useful settings in Settings > General > Accessibility. You can make all system text bold, increase the size of text in apps that support Apple's Dynamic Type, scale down motion effects such as the parallax effect or invert the colours to make iOS 7 look like a 1980s electro-pop album cover.
11. Sounds: get some new tones
iOS 7's library of sounds (Settings > Sounds > Sounds and vibration patterns) has been given a regular update, and Apple says they're so good you might miss calls because you're dancing. That, frankly, isn't very likely.
Samsung's current tablet range spans three main screen sizes - 7-, 8- and 10-inch - but apparently that's not enough for the Korean firm.
According to a listing on the Bluetooth authentication website Samsung is currently developing a tablet sporting the model ID SM-P901 and, while this posting doesn't reveal any further details other than Bluetooth 4.0, the ID does match previous reports surrounding the slate.
Perennial tech leaker @evleaks called out the 12.2-inch tablet back in July with an Exynos 5 Octa processor (that's eight cores, people) named alongside the 2560 x 1600 resolution display and SM-P900 moniker.
Is this the Galaxy Note 12.2?
These supposed specs would give the 12.2-inch tablet a similar set up to the new Galaxy Note 10.1 which also sports 3GB of RAM and Android 4.3.
It's thought this tablet will also sport a S-Pen stylus which would put it in line to be the Samsung Galaxy Note 12.2, but it's sheer size and assumed weight would surely make it a little unwieldy in the hand.
We're still waiting on news of a potential Galaxy Note 12.2 release date and confirmation from Samsung itself if the device actually exists or not. Watch this, relatively large, space.
BlackBerry has hit hard times and there's talk of selling the company (the board is looking into it), even the patent portfolio was apprized to $2-3 billion. Whether or not the BlackBerry board will sell, there will be massive layoffs first as the company is looking to cut as much as 40% of its workforce, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The job cuts will occur "in waves," affecting workers across the board and will be done by the end of the year. This won't be the first layoff, BlackBerry cut 5,000 jobs last year and is now standing at 12,700 employees according to the last official numbers. There were smaller layoffs earlier this year too.
The job cuts, along with closing down of manufacturing facilities, are part of CEO Thorsten Heins' plan to cut down the company's cost as quarterly reports have been in the red the last few quarters.
The company isn't standing still though all of this – it just announced the new BlackBerry Z30 flagship and is moving to expand its reach with a BlackBerry Messenger app for Android and iOS.
BlackBerry isn't the only company going through tough change – Motorola, another down-on-its-luck tech giant, has undertaken a similar move earlier this year.
