Who would have thought that BlackBerry users -- those professional mobile workers who never leave home or their office without their handy communications device -- would be social animals?

Yes, we know they're email aficionados who understand the value of never not being in touch, but I never would have guess they'd break records when it came to social networking activity.

But that's exactly what's happened since Crackberries got their hands on a MySpace application just a little over a week ago.

According to Research in Motion, the BlackBerry maker, 400,000 users have downloaded the software -- which RIM said represents an all-time high for both MySpace and RIM in terms of first week application downloads.

In just eight days users collectively sent and received more than 15 million messages and updated their mood and status over two million times in the first week.

Mark Papermaster is a bit teed off apparently. The 26-year former IBM Blade server executive filed a counter suit last last week against IBM which is suing Papermaster to stop him from going to work at Apple.

Last Thursday the court ordered Big Blue to put up a $3 million dollar bond just in case IBM's legal action doesn't hold water.

The case of two tech titans is due back before the court tomorrow, Tuesday, for a conference on discovery and trial motions.

The Kansas City Business Journal reports that Sprint is seeking volunteers for buy-out packages and giving employees, working in non-facing customer positions, until December 3 to decide if they'll take a severance package offer.

Calls and an email to Sprint were not returned by blog time, but the news isn't surprising given Sprint's not making huge strides in gaining subscribers despite a new rate plan and that spunky Instinct phone.

In fact it's losing customers. Its earnings report also showed higher churn than mid year even after a hefty investment in a pretty dynamic customer relationship effort within their stores.

I wouldn't count them out yet though.

While AT&T and Verizon are strong and are offering some jazzy new products like the iPhone, and BlackBerry Bold and Storm, Sprint's has a compelling story for users looking to trim back on mobile costs.

Motorola indicated during its earnings report last week it was continuing to trim staff and this week it confirmed it is laying off 3,000 employees, a "little over two thirds" coming from the handset division.

But a Motorola employee, not working in the handset division, has shared with InternetNews.com that employees believe the number will be more like a 10% workforce reduction -- more along the lines of 6,600 layoffs by early next year given Motorola currently has 66,000 employees.

Given its dismal third quarter, and the fact that things probably won't get much better til mid 2009, it's not surprising Motorola is reducing staff and trying to shore up efficiencies.

Nokia announced today it's making similar moves, though just about 600 employees, all abroad, will be impacted by reorganization efforts and a product focus shift going forward.

For months it seemed smartphone and handset players were immune to the macroeconomics hitting everyone pretty hard, but clearly even big boys like Nokia are feeling some heat.

Research in Motion may have had a huge party last week to welcome its Bold to market today but analysts are expecting RIM to have rocky times as well as consumers cut back or postpone making new handset purchases.

The fourth quarter will be enlightening given all the plans various vendors have been pushing forward this year.

In mid year Motorola said it would have 25 new devices in market by year's end and that's likely not going to be realized. RIM had to delay its Bold arrival by a month which could end up being a huge factor in holiday sales.

Even Apple isn't going unscathed. Analysts reported yesterday that production cuts could be near 40 percent, not the 10 percent initially expected. That means demand is ebbing.

As T-Mobile, HTC and Google refused to provide insight on the G1 sales it's hard to assess whether the newest smarthphone is doing well in such turbulent times.

The buzz initially said it was over sold and exceeded sales expectations, but I sort of doubt that as there would likely be some indicators from the Android community that the G1 was breaking records.

It will be interesting to learn about Sprint's earnings on Friday given the Instinct smartphone was well received and Sprint has continued its strong marketing push about its customer service.