“After struggling for years to regain the success it had with the RAZR, Motorola may soon quit the cellphone industry altogether, according to research by a Nomura investment analyst,” Aidan Malley reports for AppleInsider.
“Richard Windsor of the London-based firm explains that an investigation suggests Motorola would drop the segment entirely and instead focus on its enterprise and government sectors,” Malley reports.
“Talks of a Chinese takeover, however, are an “old chestnut” that isn’t likely to come true unless a buying firm knows how to mend Motorola’s business, the analyst says,” Malley reports.
“Motorola is already said to be suffering, and in the fourth calendar quarter of 2007 reported a 38 percent drop in its mobile device sales compared to the same period a year ago — a stark contrast to an industry widely agreed to be growing over time. The departure of Ed Zander from Motorola’s chief executive spot in mid-quarter is understood to have been partly driven by the increasingly poor results,” Malley reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: May 10, 2007, Motorola Chairman and then-CEO Ed Zander says his company is ready for competition from Apple’s iPhone, due out the following month. “How do you deal with that?” Zander was asked at the Software 2007 conference Wednesday in Santa Clara, Calif. Zander quickly retorted, “How do they deal with us?” – IDG News Service
Bullshit? Not really. You underestimate the disdain Carl Icahn has for moto’s handset space. In a put up or shut up moment, Icahn challenged Zander to turn a profit and in the Fourth quarter Moto posted an 84 percent loss!!
Zander is gone and now Icahn is urging Moto executives to dump the handset division and spin it off from the rest of moto before it brings the entire company down.
Sony-Ericsson is closing in on third-place and when Moto drops to fourth you will become a true believer.
Greg Brown, who is Zander’s replacement has now reached his own Put up or Shut up moment with Icahn, wherein he intends to slash costs by 500 million by laying even more people off. (Zander already handed out pink-slips to 7,500 people before he was given his own.)
Now Brown is going to hire new programmers, use more Qualcomm chips, and begin selling two new phones in the hopes of restricting the hemorrhaging of money and guess who is standing in the shadows waiting for the slightest slip-up so that he can scream, “I told you so!”
The US military can’t save motorola! And as far as brand equity goes, fancy names can’t save a company or a rock band from failure in the market.
They should have quit a long time ago.
The iPhone shows what a pile of utter CRAP all cellphones are.
<b>Yea I had a Razr…</i>
…then when the iPhone debuted I took a long hard look at it and decided…
…to buy another Razr.
OK SHOOT ME!!
But the Razr is slim, fits snuggly in my pocket and all I need is a reliable phone, a SECURE PHONE.
Recently I got *cough* arrested for some outstanding parking tickets (someone else’s I’ll prove it). Guess what the police searched?
Yep the phone. They didn’t get shit with my Razr, BUT THE iPHONE ???
Police are nosey fscks, they want to have a idea what and how you make your living because poor people ARE EASY TO GET CONVICTIONS ON.
Plus alot of cops get their jobs to find out about people, to tell whom THEY REALLY WORK FOR (like the mob for instance) all about you, your contacts and vital information.
The iPhone is INSECURE, it’s always being hacked, even from remote. Just carrying all your data around on a device like that is asking for trouble.
focus on its enterprise and government sectors
As a volunteer firefighter, I can say that Motorola emergency radios used to be great, but current models suck.
I guess that won’t save them either.
“KWTR” absolute genius
“The iPhone is INSECURE, it’s always being hacked, even from remote. Just carrying all your data around on a device like that is asking for trouble.”
Yeah, and it’s glossy too.
Say all you want about the iphone. i wouldn’t mind trying one I’m sure it’s a great phone but i want everyone to think about something. Motorola has been making cell phones since the begining of cell phones and still ranks up there as far as cell phone manufacturers. There are only 4 countries in the worlk (US, UK, France, Germany) that currently have official support for the iPhone. Now as much of a surprise as it may be to ppl living in these countries, there are other countries on the planet that have cell phone technology (Gasp!) in which apple has no portion of the cell market at all. I live in one of those countries (What the hell is taking apple so ******* long to bring the iPhone to Canada?) and until it starts releasing the iPhone worldwide, companies like Motorola don’t have all that much to worry about when markets like China and India have no iPhone support.
>Are we going to hear the “Blood on the iPhone” headline?
No but how about “Blood on the touch screen”