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Motorola To Spin Off Chip Division
dafz1 writes "According to an article
at CNET News, Motorola
has announced they will create a new company from their Semiconductor Products
Sector (SPS), which builds chips such as the PowerPC. Reasons cited include 'surrendering to IBM a key role in delivering the PowerPC for Apple Computer's top-of-the-line desktop'. This follows earlier news that Motorola's CEO will step down, citing a 'difference
of opinion' with fellow executives."
Too bad they didn't do this a couple of years ago. We would have been a lot better off. Good to see the executives saw the same thing.
- oZ
// i am here.
in this, but from what I have gathered, Motorola was the prime reason Apple chips fell behind, Moto and Co. simply weren't interested (or up to the task?) in producing new chips for them.
With a new division spun off, perhaps this will change?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
The new company at least will give a damn about its chip business -- it's all they've got -- something that Mot itself never did.
Surprised they didn't sell it, but they probably couldn't find any takers.
Fellow Executives: "We'd like to make market-leading products. And money."
CEO: "Meh."
Thre you have it, a difference of opinion.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Years ago I was talking to some of the semi guys, and they were royally pissed at MOTO corporate for screwing them over, funding-wise. The PPC division was always paranoid that they were getting screwed because Moto lost big $$ when Apple shut down the Mac clones way back when.
Basically, they believed Moto corporate was sandbagging the PPC to "screw Apple."
One thing for sure, they definitely need better cooks for the broth. They've seem to forgotten how to make chips.
Motorola has been having problems with their advanced semiconductor products, particularly PowerPC microprocessors, for years. When Apple first released the Power Mac G4, there were so many fabrication problems at Motorola's chip foundries that Apple initially had to scale back what were supposed to be 500MHz G4s to 450MHz, a move that really hurt Apple's credibility in the computing world.
More recently, Moto had been having problems delivering G4 7447s in sufficient quantities for Apple to release their Powerbook upgrades, including the much-ballyhooed 15" Aluminum model. In any case, Apple's decision to go with IBM's PowerPC technology was probably motivated as much by pragmatic corporate survivalism as any other factor -- they simply couldn't afford to be tied down by a semiconductor sloth like Motorola.
In any case, I doubt this means much for Moto's embedded processor and microcontroller business, which has been thriving for quite some time. It just doesn't operate under the same pressure as the rapidly advancing world of high-performance microprocessor products. The 68HC11 and HCS12 will probably be around for a very long time to come.
I think the difference was he wanted to remain employed, and they didn't agree...
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
Sure, it's great for employees to have an in-house Potato Chips departement, but companies should concentrate on one thing, and do it well.
It's seems likely to me that Motorolla did not want to use it's own semiconductors in it's communications business. But doing so would, in essence, be a vote of no confidence in their own semiconductor business.
By spinning off their semi-conductor biz and framing it as a move to meet demands from other customers, they are able to ditch their processors without outright killing their semiconductor business.
If the spinoff does poorly, they'll quietly kill it later. If it does well, they'll either start using their products again or sell it off for a big profit.
It's sad to see Motorolla leaving the chip business though. :-(
Motorola was placed in contrast with Zenith. Both companies were established at around the same time and were basically in the same market. Over time, however, Zenith languished while Motorola kept on crankin' out the hits. Motorola's culture encouraged innovation and relentless focus on quality.
Those of you who graduated from college in the 1990s or 2000s likely won't remember this, but in the 1980s, Motorola was one of the view companies that was consistently beating Japanese companies in quality. They were hailed by US government and business leaders alike as an exemplar of what an American business could do in a challenging international market.
This is just further proof that nobody sits on top forever, and that keeping a very large, multinational business dynamic is a tremendously difficult task.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It really doesn't matter what 'Joe on the street' thinks Motorola does.
Joe's car has eight or twelve Motorola 6805 processors in it, and almost every appliance in his house has a motorola processor or two. It matters a lot more what the hardware designers think of Motorola, and Motorola is STRONG in that market.
A Good Intro to NetBS
Metrowerks is part of Motorola SPS. Thus, it will be part of the spin-off.
Sigpilot : I'm in the pipe, 5 by 5.
I graduated in '93, and I got a job at Motorola in the cellular division. I worked there for 5 years, and couldn't take it anymore. Their "culture" is manufactured, and I was very surprised that they got anything accomplished. But it depends on the different divisions and how they are doing. Ours (cellular services) did OK, but we were riding on the coattails of the divisions that were doing really good (phone mfgr and radios comes to mind). They had a bonus plan in place were every 6 months you got a bonus if you met the goals set out for your division. It was given to you as a percentage of what you made in the previous 6 months. My first 6 months there we got 11%, then 4%, then 1.3%, then they cut it out all together. The year before I got there, one division got 34%. They capped it after that. It would actually produce animosity within the company. It was generally a solid company that was on a steady decline. People who had been there 10 years who were just skating on their "time served". People who had been there 20+ years who were called "lifers" and they could pretty much do as little as they wished. Ten years was called "getting your tenure". Boy, those people got a wake-up call a couple of years ago. Some people have only worked there, and they don't know what goes on outside of Moto. If you have ever met someone who has worked there for a long time, you know what I mean. Many people I know that left there have had similar experiences.
It is a very weird place. After I lost my job at the place I left Moto for (company investors pulled out during the bubble burst), I went back to Moto. I thought "it can't be as bad as I remember it." It was. I went to have a meeting to do a pre-interview. Some HR drone talked to me to gauge my skillset. I was told it would be about 4 weeks for my paperwork to be processed, and if I was a fit anywhere, I would be contacted for interviews. It was such a sterile, devoid atmosphere that it was creepy. I told her "thanks, but no thanks" and walked out, vowing to never go back.
This is just further proof that nobody sits on top forever, and that keeping a very large, multinational business dynamic is a tremendously difficult task.
I got to see just one small piece of the company, and if the rest of it was anything at all like where I worked, good riddance. Of course, I do own stock that I purchased while there. It was around 90, then did a 3 to 1 split, and now it is around 11. Yay.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.