Two Disappointing Bits Of BlackBerry News Came Out Today

The first came from the Wall Street Journal, which first noticed that BlackBerry and its carrier partners have significantly cut the price of the flagship Z10 phone.

The Z10 launched in the US in March, and is now selling for $100 on Verizon and AT&T or $50 on AT&T if you buy it through Best Buy.

The Z10 originally sold for $200.

The price drop follows news that the BlackBerry Z10 hasn't been selling very well. When BlackBerry reported its earnings for the first full quarter of the Z10's availability, it said it only sold 2.7 million devices running BlackBerry 10. (Some of those sales include the BlackBerry Q10, the new BlackBerry phone that has a keyboard. That phone launched later in the quarter. Either way, the new BlackBerry 10 operating system isn't taking off very quickly.)

The second bit of bad news: Bloomberg reported that BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins is cracking down on executive performance, and setting lofty goals for smartphone sales and subscribers. Executives who don't meet those goals could be fired. That news comes after we learned BlackBerry fired its head of US sales among reports that the Z10 wasn't selling very well in the country.