Research in Motion, whose Blackberry handsets dominated the mobile phone scene only a few short years ago, announced Monday it was cutting 2,000 jobs — about 11 percent of its global workforce — as it falls further behind the curve now defined by the iPhone and Android-powered smartphones.

In cutting workers for the first time in a decade RIM joins Nokia as a once-mighty player who couldn’t or wouldn’t adapt quickly enough to a pace of innovation and quixotic consumer expectations that has only accelerated since the introduction of the original iPhone in June 2007. In what seems like the blink of an eye RIM is now playing a game of catch-up with upstarts Apple and Google — big, powerful competitors who came out of nowhere to to become chip leaders in the high-stakes smartphone game.

Nokia got hit with the same headwind. The biggest phone maker in the world — 28.2 percent of the market at the end of last year — announced in February that it was ditching its Symbian smartphone operating system and replacing it with software from Microsoft.

RIM is now the No. 3 smartphone platform, behind Android and iOS, according to Comscore. In terms of handset market share it is fifth, dropping in the quarter ended April 30 behind Apple, a company which makes exactly one phone.

Until recently RIM primarily pegged its success to the enterprise, where IT departments in one fell swoop would provide boatloads of “Crackberries” to armies of employees. But the model is cracking. There is a growing trend of “Bring Your Own Device” — and the devices employees are bringing are increasingly not Blackberries. RIM’s foray into the tablet arena was anti-climactic, with the Playbook getting weak reviews and inexplicably lacking the ability to receive e-mail on its own. Indeed, the No. 1 tablet permissioned for the enterprise is the iPad, besting even all Android tablets and smartphones combined. The iPad even accounts for 46 percent of activations in the financial services sector — one of RIM’s strongholds.

RIM won’t disappear any time soon, of course. But one of big factors determining success may be out of its control: developer interest. Apps are major driver of hardware purchasing decisions and here again Apple and Android are in the lead. Like Nokia, RIM plans to dump its current operating system for its suite of smartphones and adopt QNX, which already powers the PlayBook.

It hasn’t said when. Speed is of the essence.

“I think the key here, more than ever, is when do their products launch, and what kind of reception will they have and most importantly, when will QNX come in,” Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. told Reuters. “We don’t think those answers are here yet.”

Photo: DeWitt Clinton/flickr