A former executive of BlackBerry Ltd. filed a lawsuit in California recently, accusing the company’s new CEO, John Giamatteo, of sexual harassment. The complaint has sparked controversy. Under the identity of Jane Doe, the complaint, which is anonymous, reveals a number of alarming accusations made against the corporation and its CEO.
Charges and Reaction
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The plaintiff, a woman of colour with a long history at BlackBerry, alleges she was the target of sexual harassment and retribution after turning down Giamatteo’s advances. The complaint claims that after alerting the previous chief executive officer John Chen to the conduct, the harassment continues.
"I had not had that conversation with others before and no one had brought that up and it did sort of raise a red flag for me," the complainant said
"I didn't really feel comfortable going but I thought well, he was having dinners with others, I can't really be the outlier, because as so often happens to women you get called difficult or uncollaborative or something like that," she added.
ctvnews.ca
Investigation and Response of the Leaders
Although Morrison & Foerster LLP launched an external inquiry after receiving complaints about Giamatteo, BlackBerry maintains that it is committed to providing a safe work environment. Nevertheless, the lawsuit argues that, regardless of the conclusion of the inquiry, the board predetermined Giamatteo’s selection as CEO.
Unsettlingly, the plaintiff’s employment at BlackBerry was terminated under the pretext of a “restructuring” just before Giamatteo became CEO. The complaint claims she was forced to disguise her exit as a resignation by interim CEO Dick Lynch.
In summary, The complaint clarifies alarming claims of sexual harassment that have been made against BlackBerry executives and highlights issues with the company’s handling of these claims. As the case progresses, it emphasises how crucial it is to create a work environment where everyone is held accountable, equal, and safe.
I am a student pursuing my bachelor’s in information technology. I have a interest in writing so, I am working a freelance content writer because I enjoy writing. I also write poetries. I believe in the quote by anne frank “paper has more patience than person
Almost a decade ago, having a BBM number was assumed to be a cool thing. People flaunted having an instant messaging app on their phones, and many would wonder what a BBM exactly was? Blackberry Messenger has been one of the pioneers in encrypted peer-to-peer communication service. But now with the arrival of many other messaging platforms, BBM has finally given up and has decided to shut down the service.
The
company said in a blog post, “The technology industry is very
fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on
to other platforms. Though we are sad to say goodbye, the time has
come to sunset the BBM consumer service, and for us to move on.”
BBM
was first launched in 2005 and became an instant hit. The platform
was only available for the Blackberry cellphone users, and in 2013,
the company made it available for iOS as well as Android users. By
2015, the company had raised to 190 million worldwide users.
At
that time, BBM introduced features like video chat, sending and
receiving multimedia and also allowed its users to use a few payment
services.
In 2016, Emtek took over the operations for BBM and to bear with the tough competition started to work on new features. But it seems that the messenger is no more able to co-up with the competition since its rivals Whatsapp and WeChat have got their hold over the majority of the users worldwide.
However
the enterprise version of the messenger, i.e. BBMe will continue to
provide its services to the consumers, and the ones, who still want
to use BBM, can go for BBMe paying a half-yearly fee of USD 2.49.
BBMe includes features like end-to-end encryption and message
editing/un-sending. The BBMe app will be available for free on both
Apple Store and PlayStore, starting from Thursday.
For
now, the last day for BBM has been decided to be 31st May. And, till
then, the users can download the pictures, videos and documents they
have shared on the app. As soon the app shut down, the company will
delete all user data from its server within seven days but will keep
some important data on the server due to the legal reasons.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.
A lover of science and a visionary innovator, Mike Lazaridis, is the one, who is known as the father of Smartphones, in the global wireless community. A science lover and a philanthropist, he is the true supporter of the power of basic science to improve and transform the world. With the development of wireless technology, Lazaridis changed the world of communication to an extent. He is one of the most influential people of the world, who have contributed and are continuously contributing to the betterment of the world with their inventions.
Early life
Lazaridis was born on 14 March 1961, in Istanbul, Turkey. His parents belonged to the Pontic Greek dialect, who later moved to Canada, in 1966, when Lazaridis was just five years of age. The family settled down in Windsor, Ontario, where he found his first love, i.e., Science, in the Windsor Public Library. He loved reading the scientific facts and was fascinated by how things worked. His love for reading books led him to win an award, at the age of 12, for reading every science book in the Windsor Public Library. He was a science enthusiast and spent most of his childhood, in the basement of his house, assembling and building, rockets and radios, along with his friends. He even built buzzer for the popular game Reach For The Top, when he was in high school.
Founding RIM
In 1979, he entered the University of Waterloo, where he adopted electrical engineering with an option in computer science. But, only before two months of his graduation, he dropped out of the college, to found his company, Research In Motion (RIM), to fulfil a contract that he received from the General Motors, in 1984. The contract included the requirement for developing a network computer control display system. Lazaridis founded the company along with his friends Mike Barnstijn and Douglas Fregin, with the money Lazaridis’ parents had lent them through a loan. The company later developed barcode technology for a film, that was the greatest accomplishment for a newly set up company.
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By 1988, RIM was the first North American wireless data technology developer company. It also developed connectivity products for Mobitex wireless packet-switched data communications networks, becoming the first company outside Scandinavia, to do so.
The company was involved in emerging wireless technology and in the year 1999, it had scored many patents based on the same technology under its name. It had developed the DigiSync Film KeyKode Reader, Mobitex protocol converter, Mobitex point-of-sale solution, RIMGate Mobitex X.25 gateway, Freedom-Type II PCMCIA radio modem for Mobitex. In 1996, RIM developed the first two-way messaging pager, a competitor of Skytel two-way paging network developed by Motorola, that was named as Inter@ctive Pager.
BlackBerry the Smartphone Startup
In 1999, under the name of RIM, Lazaridis, developed the BlackBerry 850 pager. The device was based on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, that could receive push email from a Microsoft Exchange Server. RIM, in April 2000, launched its first BlackBerry smartphone named as BlackBerry 957. The smartphone used the encryption and S/MIME, providing high security for the user data, making the phones popular in no time. The following smartphone range from RIM was also launched with the same prefix Blackberry, that became its trade name. The next smartphone launch included the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 (the first BlackBerry phone having multimedia features), Curve 8300 series and Bold 9000.
As in 2007, Apple launched iPhone and encouraged RIM to launch its first touchscreen phone, the BlackBerry Storm, launched in 2008. Till the fall of 2010, the company had 21 million BlackBerry users in the united states. The company also expanded worldwide having 79 million BlackBerry users globally. In 2012, Lazaridis and Balsillie became the co-CEOs of the company. Only after one year of Lazaridis’ joining as the co-CEO of RIM, he resigned on 28 March 2013 from his post.
Personal Life
Lazaridis is married to Ophelia, along with whom, he has participated in various philanthropy works. The two have donated money for various research works, like for the establishment of the Perimeter Institute for Research in Theoretical Physics, the Institute for Quantum Computing in the University of Waterloo, and establishing a building for Nanotechnology Engineering program, in the same university. He is one of the members of the board of governors of the University of Waterloo and served as the vice-chancellor of the university between 2003 to 2009.
Lazaridis was awarded an Academy Award and an Emmy Award for his technical achievements. In 1999, he received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Waterloo.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.
