Motorola To Split In Two
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."
Indeed, though they spun off their semiconductor division into Freescale a while back.
Motorola forgot that the reason people bought their products was because they were the best in the world. Not the cheapest. The best. When Galvin Sr. ran the company, Motorola radios were the finest on Earth. Motorola brought us the 1st transistor TV, Quasar, the G4 chip was great. Iridium was a great idea, ruined by Galvin Jr. When Motorola was run by engineers, it thrived, even though it's products were usually the most expensive in the industry. Once the accountants and stock swindlers got hold of it, there was a race to the bottom, and this is the end result. The MBA's just can not conceive that people will pay for quality and innovation. Being cheapest, cutting R&D, Ugh, I could go on, but I think you know what I mean.
So long Motorola! It was a good run.
* Carthago Delenda Est *