More bad news for embattled smartphone maker Research in Motion, with reports emerging that new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer wants to give all staff an iPhone or Android smartphone as a work phone, abandoning BlackBerry.
According to All Things D, Yahoo currently uses RIM BlackBerry for its work phones, with some staff opting to use an iPhone or Android smartphone for personal calls.
The news gives an insight into the new direction former Google executive Mayer intends to take Yahoo, after taking over the helm at the online media giant last month.
Meanwhile, a switch at a company would be devastating for RIM, because it would mean engineers and producers would go from using BlackBerry as their main point of reference for Yahoo’s mobile experience, to treating iPhone or Android as the main reference point with BlackBerry as “just another platform”.
If Mayer goes ahead with the proposed change, Yahoo would be the latest in a string of companies, including Fortescue Metals and Halliburton, to abandon the once-dominant smartphone platform.
The news caps off a bad week for embattled Canadian smartphone maker RIM, which began the week by laying off a quarter of its workforce in Nova Scotia.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
