Google to Axe 1,200 Motorola Jobs As World Waits For Motorola to Design Something Interesting In August of last year Google announced they'd be acquiring Motorola Mobility, which includes both Motorola's wireless and set top box units (and 17,000 wireless patents), for a cool $12.5 billion. At the time, Google proclaimed that the deal would "supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers." So far that hasn't come close to happening, with layoffs and legal fisticuffs being the most interesting thing the company has done with the property. On the heels of 4,000 announced layoffs seven months ago, Google now says 1,200 jobs will soon be axed: The majority of the latest round of layoffs will occur outside the U.S., the person said, declining to be identified because the details haven’t been released. "These cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer," said Gabe Madway, a spokesman for Motorola Mobility. "It’s obviously very hard for the employees concerned, and we are committed to helping them through this difficult transition." Even Google CFO Patrick Pichette recently admitted that Motorola smartphone products don't really "wow" anybody, and it looks like that won't be changing quite yet. Pichette quite candidly said Google inherited 18 months of Motorola products in the pipeline they have to "drain" before we get to see some more interesting Nexus-focused products arrive. Earlier this month news surfaced that Google has brought in former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki to help with future Motorola smartphone product design.
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 | | Motorola I have to give credit where credit is due. Motorola phones have consistently given me service at my house where 2 separate Samsung phones would not.
Either Samsung makes terrible radios, or Motorola makes amazing ones (or both ) | |
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 ·AT&T Southeast
| Re: Motorola said by DataRiker:I have to give credit where credit is due. Motorola phones have consistently given me service at my house where 2 separate Samsung phones would not.
Either Samsung makes terrible radios, or Motorola makes amazing ones (or both )
In my experience Samsung makes terrible radios. | |
| | | | | Re: Motorola said by Gilitar:said by DataRiker:I have to give credit where credit is due. Motorola phones have consistently given me service at my house where 2 separate Samsung phones would not.
Either Samsung makes terrible radios, or Motorola makes amazing ones (or both )
In my experience Samsung makes terrible radios. I don't know about their radios, but their mobile software (phones and tablets) have an absolutely horrendous record. After my experience with a Samsung tablet, dealing with Samsung customer "support" and after reading up on Samsung mobile device issues: You couldn't give me a Samsung phone or tablet. Another new issue was announced late last week.
Motorola's tablets have been known to be well-built, but not particularly fast or having particularly impressive graphics capability. And they've tended to be relatively thick and heavy, as compared to the competition. Their phones, tho... their phones are, arguably, the best on the market.
Jim | |
| | | |  Simba7I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT | Re: Motorola said by jseymour:You couldn't give me a Samsung phone or tablet. Then give it to me!
*throws on Cyanogenmod* | |
| | | | | coma9
join:2013-02-05
United State
1 edit | Re: Motorola said by Simba7:said by jseymour:You couldn't give me a Samsung phone or tablet. Then give it to me! *throws on Cyanogenmod* Exactly. I've got a GS3 with Cyanogenmod 10 on it, and Jellybean 4.2.2 . It's fantastic! | |
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| I had one samsung phone. It absolutely sucked. Wifi and radios were mediocre compared to my moto phones. I could get poor signal sitting 5 feet from the AP.
If you look the razr maxx and its offspring are awesome phones. If Google can get them to be "Nexus" phones they are going to sell. Problem is that only Verizon really pitches them, so they have to open to the other markets. motorola cameras are bottom of the barrel, not good for a consumer market. That needs fixing, ASAP.
Also, they are arguably the ugliest designs out there. If they pretty them up, give it google pureness, then they win. Battery life is amazing. Also I had a droid inc2 on PPC, this thing really chugs. When I sold it, I think it could have lasted another 5 years.
Motorola was also famous for messing up software (awesome hardware), that's what did them in and that is where GOOG can help (maybe). Updating was also horrid.
My general opinions (smartphones):
1. Apple - The bar. IOS is now dated. Small screens. Pure IOS across the board, nobody can beat that.
2. Motorola - The best hardware. Ugly as sin. Best battery life, radios stellar (in wifi, bluetooth). SHITTY camera. Software DOA.
3. HTC - Never met a battery I couldn't kill. Friendly to dev community, the best... Buy a double wide battery day1.
4. Samsung - Eye candy, inventive, sense will kill your battery too. Horrid radios (wifi, bluetooth, baseband). If you like pure google, stay away. Hostile bootloaders.
5. Sony - WTF, am I a walkman, camera, or a phone.
6. LG - Me too. Love the Nexus 4 tho, except for the battery. Solid in the mid-range. | |
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·Optimum Online
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| Re: Motorola Couple of mistakes,
HTC is no longer friendly to the dev community, they lock bootloaders now, only some can be unlocked. Sense is HTC, not samsung, and sense contributes to battery drain on HTC devices. great radios
Samsung is actually pretty good for hackers, they probably lock bootloaders the least of any manufacturer. Touchwiz isn't all that bad, it's better than sense. Radios vary, Samsung GSM radios tend to be better than CDMA, which usaully suck. For instance my AT&T SGS2 radio works great, galaxy nexus on verizon sucked.
Motorola has the best radios and battery life. | |
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| | | | agreed... all my Samsung phones sucked on reception, even some Chinese were better but the SAR is close to Fukushima levels | |
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| said by DataRiker:I have to give credit where credit is due. Motorola phones have consistently given me service at my house where 2 separate Samsung phones would not.
Either Samsung makes terrible radios, or Motorola makes amazing ones (or both )
Ditto. My Droid 3 is the best phone I have ever used since I started using mobile phones back in the '90s.
Dave
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I may have been born yesterday. But it wasn't at night. | |
| | Reviews:
·Frontier Communi..
| said by DataRiker:I have to give credit where credit is due. Motorola phones have consistently given me service at my house where 2 separate Samsung phones would not.
Either Samsung makes terrible radios, or Motorola makes amazing ones (or both )
My Samsung Nexus sucks in the audio quality/reception department, whereas every single Motorola phone I've ever owned was awesome. Would be out in the boonies holding -100 to -90dBm when my friends on the same carrier couldn't get enough signal to text, let alone make a call or use data.
I love Motorola products for RF. Maybe Google will fix their locked bootloader/crappy UI issues while keeping the RF engineers around. Here's hoping. | |
| |  chip89
join:2012-07-05
Independence, OH | Samsung makes very bad radios I had a samsong phone when I got a iPhone from sprint I had a huge increase in signal.This was before network vision even started here. | |
| |  jazzy_
join:2004-01-27
Charleston, SC | indeed. moto design has been lacking recently but the "phone" function of their mobiles have been the best i have seen consistently. | |
| | brawneyPremium
join:2002-03-02
Frederick, MD | You are 100% right. Samsung makes horrible radios. In fact, I don't think anyone makes the radios as good as Motorola. I will only buy Motorola phones because I need them to work in rural areas where other phones I have tried simply don't work. | |
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| | 250,000 added ok they say 250,000 jobs added yea where walmart burger king M/D gas stations and other part-time jobs that only have like 20hrs or less | |
| | | | Re: 250,000 added said by whoyourdaddy:ok they say 250,000 jobs added yea where walmart burger king M/D gas stations and other part-time jobs that only have like 20hrs or less
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| | | | | Re: 250,000 added I think he's confusing Motorola with the entire US economy. 
Unless Motorola runs gas stations, Walmart, and Burger King. LOL | |
| | | | | | Re: 250,000 added I think he's just confused. | |
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 HallPremium,MVM
join:2000-04-28
Dayton, OH
kudos:2 | 6-9 months ? In August of last year Google announced they'd be acquiring Motorola Mobility...
So far that hasn't come close to happening... | |
|  dandemanPremium,MVM
join:2001-12-05
Chapel Hill, NC
·AT&T Southeast
| doesn't WOW?? don't need WOW;need rock solid performance Whoever said Motorola phones don't wow anybody.. must have their head where the sun don't shine..
The rock solid, large screen, excellent processor, radio and audio performance of my Motorola RAZR I've had for over a year is the best phone I've had to date..
Maybe it needs some chrome (not google) or tinsel added.. | |
|  MospawMy socks don't match.Hawaiian Jellyfish
join:2001-01-08
Mile High
kudos:1
All Things Macintosh
Time Warner Cable ..
Automotive
Rants, Raves, and ..
| No WOW looking, but it's there using it. My wife and I just upgraded to Motorola Atrix HDs. I have to admit there wasn't any "WOW" about it, but reading the reviews and checking out the specs, they're solid phones. I was a little hesitant getting them, but am glad we did.
Using them, though, does the "WOW". They're a lot better than the 2 year old pones they replaced (and HTC and a Nokia). On my train ride home, the old phone would consistently drop its data connection. The Atrix is crazy fast the entire route. I ahve yet to drop a call or have any kind of connection issues. Battery life as a phone is pretty good. As a wi-fi hot spot, not as much (but I expected that).
It's too bad Motorola isn't a bit better at promoting their phones with some WOW factor. They're really really good. | |
| | | wowed my Motorola I was, by the Maxx, but it required me to change to Verizon. I bought Samsung instead since they sell through all carriers. | |
| | | Love them all My RAZR M is FANTASTIC, beating an iphone 5 hands down even on a slower network. As a communications device, it's second to none, and let's face it, that's exactly what phones are and need to be. It will only get better. | |
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