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Motorola To Split In Two

Posted by kdawson on from the three-screens-and-you're-out dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Motorola plans to reorganize itself into two independent publicly held companies by the first quarter of 2011. The first company will own the Motorola brand and will include Motorola's mobile handset unit and home set-top box business. This new company will focus on the 'three screens' lifestyle envisioned by carriers like AT&T and Verizon, where customers would watch content on TV, on their computers, and on their mobile phones. The other company emerging from the split will include Motorola's wireless networking business and its enterprise radio systems operations. The wireless networking business would likely be sold off, leaving the second company with its profitable enterprise radio systems business, which generated $7 billion of the company's $22 billion in sales in 2009."

5 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ehh... And there were times by noidentity · · Score: 5, Informative

    Indeed, though they spun off their semiconductor division into Freescale a while back.

  2. Which one keeps the "Motorola" name? by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... because I *really* like Motorola cell phones. They've always been tanks. My current one is 4 years old, almost 5,000 hours, and has been dropped (and smashed by one angry perp I caught on video who tried to "destroy the evidence") onto concrete.

    The weak point was the plug at the bottom for the charger - it stopped working properly a few weeks ago. 10 minutes with the point of a kitchen knife to scrape off the accumulated gunk and it's good as new!

  3. The split was Carl Icahn's idea. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Informative

    Neither of the stories linked by Slashdot mentioned the underlying reasons for the split. The split was Carl Icahn's idea. One story: Carl Icahn Top Stocks: Yahoo! Inc., Motorola Inc., ...

    Quote: "On March 24, 2008 Icahn sued Motorola as part of his efforts to gain 4 seats on Motorola's Board and force a sale of its mobile business."

    It is interesting that the New York Times article linked by Slashdot doesn't discuss the reason for the split. The reason may be that the split would be profitable for Mr. Icahn.

  4. Symbol to be egested by El+Royo · · Score: 2, Informative

    This isn't really too surprising. When they purchased Symbol Technologies they were making a play for the wireless networking IP. I really didn't think they were very interested in holding on to the bar code scanning end of that business. Symbol is a big player in my industry so I'm very interested to see how those technologies get split up. I suppose we'll be getting much better details soon (or maybe I could have RTFA).

    --
    Author of Enyo: Up and Running from O'Reilly Media
  5. What happened? V3 failures. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Informative

    "I used to work for Motorola as a software engineer on handsets. It was a lousy experience."

    Could you explain further? What happened that cause Motorola's inability to make sensible decisions?

    The Motorola V3 Razr phone was successful until owners discovered the screen was open to dust and moisture, the manual was terrible, and the help messages were unhelpful. I noticed that Motorola cell phones became much less popular after the Razr.