The past few years have been tough for BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB). The Canadian tech giant has failed to succeed in the smartphone market which is dominated by iPhones and Androids. Their first flagship models even failed to sell and as a result, the company formerly known as Research In Motion will lay off 4,500 employees later on this year. Even more interesting: one of the company’s co-founders want to buy the company back, unfortunately it looks as if BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) may just end up with the highest bidder.
BlackBerry isn’t done yet
In hopes to reach and possibly reconnect with their customer base, BlackBerry plans on sending out a letter. Crackberry (a BlackBerry fansite) reports that the company will send out a letter to about thirty newspapers in nine different countries. This letter will explain why BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) isn’t done yet, but the letter also goes into detail regarding the company’s issues. The letter is signed by the company’s team rather than chief executive officer Thorsten Heins.
The beginning of the letter reads:
To our valued customers, partners and fans,
You’ve no doubt seen the headlines about BlackBerry. You’re probably wondering what they mean for you as one of the tens of millions of users who count on BlackBerry every single day.
We have one important message for you:
You can continue to count on BlackBerry.
How do we know? We have substantial cash on hand and a balance sheet that is debt free.
We are restructuring with a goal to cut our expenses by 50 percent in order to run a very efficient, customer-oriented organization.
These are no doubt challenging times for us and we don’t underestimate the situation or ignore the challenges. We are making the difficult changes necessary to strengthen BlackBerry.
The future of BlackBerry looks bleak
The fact that BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) felt the need to address their fans in a letter is more like a marketing opportunity. Whether this attempt works or not remains to be seen. For now, the future of BlackBerry looks bleak and it’s highly unlikely a letter would change that.