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Will Motorola Rise From the Ashes?
An anonymous reader writes "According to ZDNET the once almighty Motorola is going to split into two companies, 'If the split goes through as planned, what will remain will be the "broadband and mobility solutions" business, which includes enterprise mobility, government and public safety, and Motorola's home and networks divisions.' Engadget claims to have an insider's email that details where it all went wrong, paying particular attention to mismanagement at the highest levels. What makes all of this even more of a shame though is that Motorola's latest product lineup seems to be receiving critical acclaim but with the company in so much termoil, will it ever rise out of the ashes?"
Moto split up in the 90s, 3com swallowed them. You might remember the bit sufer modems of the time that all support was dropped from.
The second split in 10 or 15 years.
The problem with Moto is that they were always good at engineering, but not good at asthetics. Now they are good at asthetics, and sometimes engineering.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
It was obvious to me when Apple announced the iPhone that MOTO was going to have a problem on its hands in very short order. Although the pricing made it unaffordable for Joe Sixpack, it was immediately apparent that Apple had, at a single stroke, completely redefined the cell phone experience. Every mobile product that was more than eight months from release should have been killed immediately, and all the freed up personnel should have then stared at the iPhone demo video for two weeks straight until the UI principles became ingrained. New design ideas could have then flowed out of that. It could even have been done inexpensively.
Had they done that last year, they would have had new prototypes to show by now, they could have started generating buzz, and could have remained relevant. Now, it will take a hugely expensive effort to keep the division -- possibly the entire company -- afloat.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Moto split up in the 90s, 3com swallowed them.
Fact check please.
Ah, but it was said with such certitude...
I think there were few major problems with Motorola: 1) going everywhere, but ending nowhere, and 2) lately trying to find a hit product instead of churning out good products.
Now you might be asking what I mean by saying going everywhere, but ending nowhere. Well simple, Motorola always had more than one technology always in production and in planning. In operating systems front they first went to Symbian, then started their Linux project and in the same embraced Windows Mobile. Now compare this to Nokia that just concentrated to Symbian, no Linux, no Windows Mobile. Only lately Nokia has introduced Linux based Internet Tablets just to gather some experience, but they still are 100% committed to Symbian. In my opinion Motorola should have committed to Symbian as strongly as Nokia and Sony-Ericsson did, maybe allied with Sony-Ericsson in using UIQ.
The second problem with Motorola relates to first problem. As I said Motorola jumped everywhere in their search of finding a hit, as can be seen in operating systems front. The front where Motorola really failed was in introducing new phones. They had a hit with RAZR, which created an illusion that they were onto something. In reality they just had luck, and what they should have done, would have been to introduce tens of different variations of the phone. Now compare to Nokia witch doesn't really have hit products, but instead it has a large collection of small hits and fairly trading phones. When I just looked at Nokia's European web site I counted that they have 92 phones/devices available. Motorola really should have copied Nokia's formula on doing few platforms and customizing them rapidly and introducing countless of different phones with short life cycles.
Now, it might seem to some sad that Motorola is spinning their cellphone division out, but then again that might be the best option to take. When the cellphone division are their own company, they will concentrate into a one thing and a one thing only and either succeed of fail. I think a good example of this would be Sony-Ericsson where both Ericsson and Sony spinned their mobile phone divisions, and after the spin out the company has succeeded fairly well.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
Ahh, finally someone mentions the REAL Motorola.
Both my mom and dad once worked for Motorola, no not making cell phone stuff, or embedded CPU's, they made televisions on an assembly line. That's right, televisions. My mother in particular made degausser coils. Then all of a sudden they were told that the factory had been sold, to some company called Matsushita that no one had heard of, but has dome minimal brand awareness as Panasonic. Matsushita then had Motorolas Quasar brand to use for themselves, because at that time there was still some pride in buying American. Well soon after Matsushita shut down the plant, they didn't really need it, they just wanted the name and some of the technology.
Motorola KNEW that, but didn't tell anyone. They did say before the sale that if any employee wanted to stay with Moto, they could move to Shaumburg on their own dime, and they might be able to offer them a job, no guarantees. Bastards just threw the workers to the dogs, I still loathe Motorola for what they did.