Oh, how the mighty have fallen. BlackBerry, once king of the smartphone market, has seen its market share dwindle as the popular Apple iPhone and terrific new Android devices take hold of consumers’ hearts. And that’s had a significant impact on BlackBerry manufacturer RIM‘s bottom line: The company lost $518 million last quarter, and as a result, will have to lay off 5,000 workers.

Things aren’t likely to get better for the struggling tech company anytime soon, either. Their BlackBerry 10 comeback device has been delayed until 2013, and the company’s BlackBerry Playbook has proved to be a flop, selling only 260,000 tablets last quarter as compared to the millions of iPads Apple sold within days of the new 4G iPad‘s launch.

posted by Mike Wehner