Motorola To Split In Two

Posted by kdawson on Saturday February 13, 2010 @04:00AM 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."

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Re:Ehh... And there were times by noidentity · 2010-02-13 04:12 · Score: 5, Informative

Indeed, though they spun off their semiconductor division into Freescale a while back.
The split was Carl Icahn's idea. by Futurepower(R) · 2010-02-13 05:14 · 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.