BlackBerry manufacturer and parent RIM has revealed that its lead marketer in Europe, Sarah Probert, has left the company just three months into the BB10 campaign that many believe will make-or-break the brand's fortunes.

Research In Motion announced in June that it was to axe 5000 jobs (approximately 30% of its workforce) in an effort to save $1bn.


But with the BlackBerry 10 delayed until Q1 2013, (having originally been set a pre-Christmas date to compete with the iPhone 5) RIM's newly-appointed chief of marketing Frank Boulben has made waves by removing the eight-year BB and EMEA veteran Sarah Probert.

You can read the original break from Sarah Shearman of Marketing Magazine here.

Despite a raft of redundancies, high-profile departures and hardware delays, chief executive Thorsten Heins declared the company was not "in a death spiral" last month.

Heins has today announced to Bloomberg that the BB10 OS is ready to license, saying:

"We’re here to win," he said. "We're not here to fight for third or fourth place."

It seems this new release will be do-or-die for the BlackBerry brand, as sales of BlackBerry devices slumped by 43% last quarter.