Be Smart

The US division of Dubai-based WM smartphone manufacturer i-mate has apparently been left with a skeleton staff, after a combination of redundancies and staff walk-outs following problems delivering their new Ultimate line of cellphones to retail channels as well as "massive resistance" from carriers reluctant to offer the handsets.  All staff in the engineering, QA and tech writing departments were laid off, and several other employees - including the Chief Software Officer and VP of Sales and Marketing - left voluntarily, in some cases in support of their unemployed colleagues.

i-mate in the US now consists of a General Manager (a freshly promoted sales director) and a small staff who will be managing the company's webshop for unlocked Ultimate handsets.  Having displayed their latest products at the Mobile World Congress, i-mate had received much coverage for their VGA-screened 9502 smartphone, but had yet to finalise distribution deals with any of the US carriers.