[Hands0n]

It seems that Motorola may be up for sale or spun off as a separate business entity, similar to what Moto did with some of its other businesses. That may just be the saving grace for a company that is apparently now being run as a series of disparate fiefdoms - a sure sign of corporate entropy. What Motorola need, if they are to survive as a mobile phone manufacturer, is a clear direction and a serious culling of product and the layers of management that have brought this part of the business down onto its knees.


Motorola still has several thousand developers working on Linux, which still can't do 3G after six years of trying. That should be one of new CEO Greg Brown's easier decisions...

But has Greg Brown the strength of position and character to make these decisions? He has to look beyond the self-interest spin that his own managers and directors will throw up.

Fixing Motorola requires the kind of ruthless rationalisation begun at Apple in the mid-1990s by Gil Amelio and continued by Steve Jobs,.......If he doesn't or cannot then he will be infamous for presiding over Motorola's final days.

Full article at The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/04/motorola_phone_business_analysis/)

[Ben]

The goings on over at Motorola defy belief. How has one of the fore bearers of the mobile phone gone so horribly wrong?

Well, I've never owned a Moto, which probably goes a long way to explaining things. In fact, I've only ever had Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets, excluding that little (big, expensive) accident that was the NEC e606. Now, forgive me, not bothering with Samsung's girly flip phones or LG's curious creations is no biggie - when you look at SE and Nokia's market share added together it's apparent that a lot of people don't bother either - but for the longest time Moto have been known as the worlds second handset manufacturer, so my unconscious disinterest in their products... interests me.

Stylistically I lump Moto in with Mercedes. Why? Cars and phones, one might think, couldn't be more different. But when you look at some of the design cues of handsets such as the RAZR there's a definite vulgarity, a feeling that the dimensions of the device, albeit slim, are more imposing than they otherwise should be.

In a car this isn't a problem, or at least it hasn't been for Merc, as size matters to a lot of Merc drivers. The fact that their cars have an unwieldy bonnet only serves to improve the ownership experience. In a phone, however, the results are quite different. It's all well and good being imposing and having presence, but it's what's inside that counts. Folk who see a Merc will often think "Gosh, look at that ugly thing... that's a good car." Those who see a Moto will think "Gosh, look at that ugly thing... that's a crap phone."

The popularity of the RAZR promoted global, instant recognition of Motorola's pathetic OS and soft insides. The handsets are so striking that, as their market penetration soared, they still failed to fade into the background - I, for one, noticed every person using one and still do. For an excellent phone this sort of awareness and self-promotion would be the start of something amazing. In this case, I think the RAZR was the manifestation of the rot at Moto. After all, who wants everybody to notice them every time they get their mobile out, when the whole world knows that their mobile is rubbish.

How many people upgraded from the RAZR to another Moto? I bet my hat (I don't have any hats) that it was a ridiculously small number. Now a global symbol of uselessness, and a bit like having a raw chicken growing out the side of your head, I bet vast swathes of Moto users flocked to the seeming anonymity of Nokia and Samsung handsets, discovering under their much subtler exteriors an interior worthy of being called a mobile phone.

So Moto should have produced less vulgar, more anonymous handsets? Not at all. It should have produced better handsets to match its distinctive styling. It should have finished the insides of the RAZR rather than putting a mere shell into production.

Of course the demise of the Moto phone biz is about much more than this. I've only reflected on my personal gaze of the Moto brand. There are obviously massive management issues within the company, and probably issues at every other level as well.

[Ben]

Looks like Moto's CEO is stepping in over at the phone devision to try and sort things out... either that or he's sprucing ready for a sale :D http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-phones/news/2008/02/06/Motorola-CEO-To-Personally-Oversee-Phone-Business/p1