Canadian smart phone company Research in Motion Ltd (RIM), maker of the BlackBerry, announced its first major round of job cuts in a decade Monday morning. The company says it will slash around 2,000 workers, or approximately 10 percent of its international work force. The aggressive competitive landscape, with the skyrocketing growth of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones, has burdened the Waterloo, Ontario-based company, which has struggled to create an offering to match the mass appeal of the Apple iPhone and Google Android phones.

According to Bloomberg, RIM estimated in June that sales this quarter will shrink for the first time in nine years. The company’s market share in the United States and the rest of the world has been falling behind its competitors, and it has not introduced a major new model of the BlackBerry phone since August 2010. Analysts and commentators have accused the former smart phone leader of suffering from innovation lethargy.

Reuters commented, “The BlackBerry Storm, an attempt at an all-touchscreen device, was met with fanfare in 2008, but it never materialized as a solid competitor to Apple’s iPhone. Last year’s BlackBerry Torch was more evolution than revolution.”

However, RIM did manage to release a new tablet computer this spring, called the BlackBerry PlayBook. While the PlayBook has yet to win a major following among app developers or consumers, last week it became the only tablet device so far to win clearance from the U.S. federal government for use by government agencies.

RIM’s job cuts coincide with the company’s restructuring of its second-level management and the retirement of Chief Executive Officer Don Morrison after working for the company for over a decade. Mr. Morrison has been out on medical leave since June.

Currently, the company is operating with two chief executives and two chief operating officers. RIM has confirmed that Thorstein Heins and Jim Rowan who will co-share the chief operating officer role, with Heins overseeing product and sales and mandate of the company’s hardware and software areas.

Rowan will be leading RIM’s manufacturing, global supply chain, repair department, organizational development and management of facilities.

The North American IT backbone of RIM stated that the job cuts are a “prudent and necessary step for the long-term success of the company,” and that the company aims to work on “eliminating redundancies and reallocating resources to focus on areas that offer the highest growth opportunities and alignment with RIM’s strategic objectives.”

Perhaps in a move timed to draw attention away from the unpleasant announcement of the pending job cuts, Monday evening RIM Tweeted about the coming release of new BlackBerry OS7 devices, teasing followers to check back Tuesday for more details. OS7 is a new BlackBerry operating system that was supposed to be released earlier this summer in a few devices but has since been postponed until fall. The company is already slated to release a handful of these devices before the end of the year.

RIM isn’t alone in failing to keep up with the iPhone led smart phone revolution. Nokia, the world’s largest phone maker, has also struggled to produce a breakthrough smart phone offering.

BlackBerry Maker Cuts 2,000 Jobs, Reshuffles Management