GigaOM is reporting that pink slips have been handed to some of the employees of San Francisco-based BitTorrent. The article said that the layoffs stem from an ill-fated attempt to spin off a “consumer distribution effort” to Best Buy for $15 million, which eventually fell through.

GigaOM founder Om Malik said he thinks BitTorrent can save itself, mainly because it’s so popular, and because it’s a strong infrastructure for distributing large video files in addition to music—something that partners could eventually make good use of. “BitTorrent has been working with a handful of set-top box makers such as Pace Micro, and is trying to embed its technologies into other devices,” Malik wrote. “The funny thing is that even [wireless] carriers want to work with them. All of this makes this company salvageable.”