“Standard & Poor’s said Friday it cut the long-term corporate credit rating on Motorola Inc. to BB+, or junk status, from BBB. The rating agency also took the company’s ratings off review for a possible further downgrade,” Wallace Witkowski reports for MarketWatch Pulse.
“‘The current rating action reflects continual operational challenges in the Mobile Devices unit, which are not likely to be reversed over the intermediate term, leading to depressed profitability and returns, adjusted debt leverage over 4x, and substantially diminished free cash flows,’ said Bruce Hyman, an S&P credit analyst, in a statement,” Witkowski reports.
Full article here.
In May 2007, Motorola’s then-Chairman and then-CEO Ed Zander boasted that his company was 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. Zander quickly retorted, “How do they deal with us?”
Sad. A company whose processors were in at least two of the very first generation of personal computers: Apple II and Tandy’s Colour Computer and provided the only faint hop for Apple before Steve’s return will soon be finding its place in history. They lost their way. Too bad! There aren’t many original players left.
“faint hop”
I meant ‘faint hope’ !
It’s amazing how many of these astronomically overpaid, “genius-level”, utterly arrogant CEOs just have NO vision at all.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
‘Nuff said.
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
MOT, PALM, GM, F, Crysler, Lehman, Merril Lynch, the list is growing of US companies that are or will be history.
Fukkkkem
I agree with kirk, MOT was instrumental in bringing the personal computer (and TTL computing altogether) into fruition. Their 74XXX and 68XXX series’ of devices really helped to pave the way to where we are now. As for their current status, they still make viable simple phones, like the Razor, for the consumers. Sad to see them under such duress.
Maybe they could bring back the 68000?
Jobs knew when to abandon that sinking ship.
As I said before RIM, Palm, Nokia, Motorola and these guys should have taken notes from the iPod strategic decimation on the music player market over the years.
1) Create a simple devise that’s easy to use. (One button)
2) Easy to update.
3) Online store with easy access. (This is what kills them)
4) Fix major flaws before shipping. (What was RIM thinking?)
5) Stop wasting millions on advertising that doesn’t work.
6) Small retail stores. (The friendly customer service really kills…?)
…Oh why bother continuing its too late for these guys at this point.
Just a thought….
“I agree with kirk, MOT was instrumental in bringing the personal computer (and TTL computing altogether) into fruition. “
NO. Specific people, people with a vision and who were willing to work hard to make things better, were the ones that make things happen. Companies are just the vehicles that are used.
When people try to make things better for us all, that is good.
When people who come later and just try to MAKE MONEY off those ideas that come before, then things get bad. (“When the salesmen run the company, its on its way out.”)
Just a thought.
en
Uh, again…
Because MOT was told by Jobs that they could no longer sell CloneMacs for less money than Apple was — while getting a $250 license for $100, and still publicly bitching that that was too much — MOT decided it would be a great idea to switch out all the Macs in the typing pool — 25,000 — to Win98 machines.
Okay.
Ever see any ‘Motorola Inside’ stickers?
GFR.