3 senior BlackBerry executives leaving company

Almost two weeks after 250 employees werelet go from BlackBerry's testing facilityin Waterloo, Ont.,CBC News has confirmed three seniormembers of the company will alsobe leaving.

• Doug Kozak, vice-president, corporateinformation technologyoperations.
• Carmine Arabia,senior vice-president, global manufacturing and supply chain.
• Graeme Whittington, vice-president, service operations.

In an email to CBC News, company spokeswoman Rebecca Freiburger wrote: "We are in the second phase of our transformation plan where we will be assessing our organizationfrom top to bottomto ensure we have the right people in the right roles with the right skill sets to drive new opportunities in mobile computing."

Previous layoffs

BlackBerry announced in late July it had laid off 250 workers from its new-product testing facility, an area that supports research and development.

At that time the company also confirmed David J. Smith, executive vice president of mobile computing, had resigned "for personal reasons." He was in charge of BlackBerry's phased-out PlayBook tablet.

Last year, the company announced plans to cut about 5,000 jobs as part of restructuring efforts.

BlackBerry continues to attempt to regain its footing in the highly competitive smartphone market against technology giants such as Apple and Samsung.

BlackBerry's latest smartphoneoffering, the Q5, will be available in Canada on Aug. 13.