RIM -- BlackBerry Folks -- To Cut 11 Percent of Work Force -- Not a Bakken Story

Coming on the heels of the huge work force cut at Cisco, this is huge.

This is not about the economy. This is all about Apple.

Link here.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd plans to cut about 11 percent of its workforce to slash costs as it struggles to compete against Apple Inc and Google Inc.

The announcement of 2,000 job cuts on Monday came a month after the Canadian company revealed that it would reduce headcount for the first time in a decade.

One analyst said the job cuts were slightly deeper than expected but were key to RIM's recovery from a slump triggered by product delays and intense competition from Apple's iPad and iPhone as well as devices powered by Google's Android software.

This is truly incredible.

After I posted the story above, The Wall Street Journal has a nice article on why Apple is crushing the competition. 

I haven't read the full article yet, but here are my reasons: a) innovation; b) risk-taking; c) aesthetics; d) get rid of disk drives; e) go wireless and go flash drive (no moveable parts inside the computer); f) aesthetics; g) don't compromise; h) aesthetics; i) aggressively protect the patents and the brand. Later, I will think of some others. But innovation, aesthetics, and not compromising are the big three. Years and years ago, Stever Jobs pointed out that when Apple had 2 percent of market share and Dell said Apple should fold, if Apple got to 4 percent of market share, Apple would double the size of their share of the market. Now here is the lede for that WSJ article:

AppleInc. is crushing it, but its success is disrupting the technology sector in ways that could hurt the stocks of many other players—friend and foe alike.

Last week, Apple's quarterly results stunned even the optimistic watchers on Wall Street. Eschewing the usual kabuki dance where a company magically beats the analysts' consensus estimate by a penny or three, Apple reported second-quarter earnings of $7.79 a share, oceans past the $5.85 estimate. 

Hmmmm... the article had nothing to do with the headline. Slopping headline writing.