Ever since taking over as CEO of Yahoo (YHOO), Marissa Mayer has used a series of carrots and sticks to boost employee morale at the company and to motivate employees to work longer and harder than they ever have. Mayer’s new program of giving everyone in the company a free smartphone falls squarely into the “carrot” category, although it could prove bittersweet for any Yahoo employees who still love devices manufactured by RIM (RIMM). As Business Insider reports, Mayer is giving employees a choice of receiving an iPhone 5, a Samsung Galaxy S III, an HTC One X, an HTC EVO 4G LTE, or a Nokia Lumia 920, but not a BlackBerry.
Business Insider says that there’s a simple reason why employees won’t be able to choose a BlackBerry device: Because the company is ending its support for RIM devices on its corporate network. To make matters even worse for RIM, an internal memo sent out to Yahoo employees purportedly says that the company “is moving off of blackberries as our corporate phones and on to smartphones in 22 countries,” implying that RIM’s devices don’t even count as smartphones anymore.
