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story category Motorola Cans Another 2,600 Employees
10,000 departures in 15 months due to unpopular handsets...
12:06PM Friday Apr 04 2008 by Karl Bode
tags: business · wireless · hardware · trouble
Motorola may still be dominating the cable modem market (43% market share), but the company as a whole continues to struggle because of a persistent drop in handset sales. The company today announced they'd be firing an additional 2,600 employees, bringing the total number of terminated employees over the last 15 months to 10,000. The company recently denied, then confirmed that it was splitting off their money-losing handset business in order to right the ship. The Chicago Tribune notes that the majority of layoffs will be in Singapore, Plantation, Florida, and Birmingham, England.

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  7. iPhone Glitches May Be AT&T's Problem After All...
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Forums » Motorola Cans Another 2,600 Employees
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Subaru
1-3-2-4
Premium
join:2001-05-31
Greenwich, CT
clubs:

thanks to...

the razor they thought they would just sit on that while others updated to better phones with features.

RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL

Standard procedure...

...preparing for a spinoff or sale.
--
Toolmaster of La Grange.
maxpower

join:2006-10-09
Providence, RI

Hello Moto

They would sell more handsets if they didn't make such garbage.

rf_engineer

join:2003-08-04
USA

Re: Hello Moto

Amen. I gave Moto two chances recently, based on their phones from back in the "good ole days", hoping to get that same quality. Boy, was that a mistake. Goodbye Moto.
mwallace

join:2001-09-15
Riverside, CA
·AT&T Yahoo

Re: Hello Moto

Same here. I didn't want a MOTO for my upgrade, since it lacked features. I went with another NON-MOTO brand. But then, I had a change of heart, and thought I'd give MOTO a try. That was a mistake. So, switched back to the NON-MOTO. I keep the MOTO as a backup only.

Eddyisgreat
Premium
join:2003-01-21
Seattle, WA
clubs:
·Comcast

I remember...

a time when motorola's handsets were world class. To have one would mean you were somebody...I guess the RAZR was the last big thing, and from there it went down hill. I guess the product naming team was the first to go, with creative hits such as the PBELFONE(omg what?) , KRZR, RIZR, ROKR, SLVR, SCPL, the list goes on.

Oh well.
Enlightener

join:2006-01-28
Cedar Park, TX
·AT&T U-Verse

Re: I remember...

I overhead a conversation between my wife, her sister and her best friend. The latter had both had RAZRs and complained of how prone it was to damage. They decided that it was really poor quality and that they would never buy another moto. My wife heard this and decided the same.

`Women` are a powerful market.... just look at the Honda Civic brand and what it did to domestic car manufacturers. Now if they change their collective mind..... well I wouldn't want to be on their shitlist.

normat
Premium
join:2000-08-02
Boynton Beach, FL
clubs:

Re: I remember...

Yes, they are less likely to dink around with something that doesn't work.

SteveLV702
Premium
join:2004-04-22
Henderson, NV

Whats going to happen to Nextel?

ALL Nextel Phones are made by Motorola if Motorola leaves the handset market then whats going to happen to Nextel whos going to take over making their iDEN phones?

PhoenixDown
-- Ron Paul 2008 --
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join:2003-06-08
Fresh Meadows, NY
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Re: Whats going to happen to Nextel?

The way things are going over at sprint, you wont have to worry about that for much longer either

Subaru
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said by SteveLV702 See Profile :

ALL Nextel Phones are made by Motorola if Motorola leaves the handset market then whats going to happen to Nextel whos going to take over making their iDEN phones?
I bet Samsung could make a smaller and thinner iDEN phone then motorola could ever do.

RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL

Re: Whats going to happen to Nextel?

Why would Samsung want any part of a dying market on a dying provider?
--
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Subaru
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Re: Whats going to happen to Nextel?

said by RadioDoc See Profile :

Why would Samsung want any part of a dying market on a dying provider?
why would people say they think Samsung would by the mobile devision of Motorola?

RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL
·AT&T Midwest

Re: Whats going to happen to Nextel?

by? Don't know.

Buy? Motorola makes a lot of phones, but the company is in the shit right now and they are shedding unprofitable divisions. Part of the problem are things like iDen phones. Samsung may be interested in other parts of the division.

Or monkeys may be running the trade press.

Any one of those is as probable as the others.
--
Toolmaster of La Grange.

Subaru
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Re: Whats going to happen to Nextel?

you don't think iDen is profitable? I left Nextel because I got fed up with system busy messages maybe about 5 times a month.

The only thing decent was the PTT but sometimes I was unable to get the person who I was trying to reach.

RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL

Re: Whats going to happen to Nextel?

Well, I'll let the market stats and Sprint/Nextel's condition speak for themselves.
--
Toolmaster of La Grange.

Subaru
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Re: Whats going to happen to Nextel?

said by RadioDoc See Profile :

Well, I'll let the market stats and Sprint/Nextel's condition speak for themselves.
yeah I understand but I don't know seems like they are just trying to keep Nextel's head above water.

And I guess no news is good news...

BillRoland
McCain 2008
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Ocala, FL
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·Cox HSI

Re: Whats going to happen to Nextel?

Actually the problems at Sprint with their horrific management of the Nextel iDEN system are part of the problems at Motorola. iDEN was a huge profit area for Motorola, and helped subsidize other areas of the company. With Sprint driving off customers faster than rats jumping off a sinking ship, it has really made a bad situation far worse at the big /\/\. What has been interesting is Sprint's new CEO, Dan Hesse, has been talking up iDEN quite a bit. They put a bunch of the older handsets back for sale, slashed the crap out of the iDEN phone prices, etc etc. In wireless, however, coverage and voice quality are king. Sprint has a long way to go on that.

Anyway, there's still lots of money to be made in iDEN, Nextel International (NII Holdings) is growing like gangbusters in South America. Given proper network management, new handsets, and good customer service, iDEN in the US will reverse trend too. Sprint hasn't delivered on any of that yet, though.
--
"Don't steal. The government hates competition."
Sammer

join:2005-12-22
Pittsburgh, PA
Sprint is already asking the FCC to let them do something else withe IDEN spectrum.

BillRoland
McCain 2008
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Re: Whats going to happen to Nextel?

said by Sammer See Profile :

Sprint is already asking the FCC to let them do something else withe IDEN spectrum.
No, they're not. They're asking the FCC to give them more time for the rebanding effort.
--
"Don't steal. The government hates competition."
Sammer

join:2005-12-22
Pittsburgh, PA

Re: Whats going to happen to Nextel?

said by BillRoland See Profile :

said by Sammer See Profile :

Sprint is already asking the FCC to let them do something else withe IDEN spectrum.
No, they're not. They're asking the FCC to give them more time for the rebanding effort.
You are correct but Sprint can no longer afford the rebanding effort while losing IDEN customers in droves.

Chuckles
Premium
join:2006-03-04
Saint Paul, MN

1/2 full.

Now all those people can find jobs they enjoy instead of making handsets all day.
--
kustomerservice.net

Dread
Mark for moderation
Premium
join:2005-02-28
irc

Is it a shocker?

If they actually spent money making a better ui for their phones instead of continuing the razr in 500 different colors
they wouldn't be at this point.
--
Spread the joy of herpes

C0deZer0
Oc'D To Rhythm And Police
Premium
join:2001-10-03
Davenport, FL
·Verizon Online DSL

Can we really be surprised?

Motorola may have invented the wireless phone at some point (largely due to inspiration of the communicator from Star Trek, so the story goes), but the Razr stopped being trendy, and they've not had a standout success since. They may've come out with the ROKR, but that thing was so bad that Apple went into the mobile phone business with the iPhone to fix all the problems the ROKR had.

Motorola design isn't exactly famous for a lot of (good) things. Yes, the latest iterations of the RAZR are good, but look how long it took to get to where they could be reliable. Can't have been too long ago when the RAZR was considered an epic piece of *expletive* for reception and call quality.

And Motorola has some laughably bad reputation for battery life. Even now, right after a fresh charge, my h505 bluetooth headset (not much more than a couple of months old now) will start going into beeeping fits about low battery. And you can't even get half your battery life on any of their phones after a year's worth of usage.
--
Front Line Force Fortress Forever
tmc8080

join:2004-04-24
Floral Park, NY

What's a matter?

Consumers don't want to pay $400+ for handsets with technology /features that are 5 years old?

Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02

(topic offline) Here come the comments...

Moderator Action
This entire topic was removed, either temporarily, or permanently.

stated reason was: trolling

Realtech23
Premium
join:2006-03-27
Olean, NY
·RoadRunner Cable

Most the Losses are NOT US

A sizable portion of the 2,600 lost jobs will come from Singapore, where the company is planning to halt cell phone manufacturing by the end of this year. Most are overseas including England. At least the majority of the job losses are not in the US. Which is what some companies rather do. Cut US jobs and keep overseas because they are cheaper.
--
I am the Coyote

normat
Premium
join:2000-08-02
Boynton Beach, FL
clubs:

Re: Most the Losses are NOT US

There are some good people at the Plantation, Florida office. I've talked to a few myself that would agree with some of the comments here.
SierraRob

join:2007-01-10
Prather, CA

Wow, that dinosaur is still breathing

What? Motorola is still around? Didn't it make clunky vacuum tube TVs or something? Why hasn't it died yet, like RCA and Zenith?


RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL

Re: Wow, that dinosaur is still breathing

RCA is part of Thompson SA
Zenith is part of LG Electronics.

Zombies walk among us.
--
Toolmaster of La Grange.

Mchart
Tech Control

join:2004-01-21
Gurnee, IL
·RoadRunner Cable
·AT&T Yahoo

said by SierraRob See Profile :

What? Motorola is still around? Didn't it make clunky vacuum tube TVs or something? Why hasn't it died yet, like RCA and Zenith?


Just because Moto's cell division isn't doing good, doesn't mean the company isn't doing good. They still hold quite large contracts for the government, which is banking them quite a bit money.

Goober

join:2000-12-17
Naperville, IL
·WOW Internet and C..
·Comcast

Re: Wow, that dinosaur is still breathing

said by Mchart See Profile :

said by SierraRob See Profile :

What? Motorola is still around? Didn't it make clunky vacuum tube TVs or something? Why hasn't it died yet, like RCA and Zenith?


Just because Moto's cell division isn't doing good, doesn't mean the company isn't doing good. They still hold quite large contracts for the government, which is banking them quite a bit money.
Very true. Most of the non-handset businesses will be happy when the handset business is shed. It's poor performance was affecting bonuses of the people in the non-handset businesses.
ricep5
Premium
join:2000-08-07
Jacksonville, FL
·Comcast Formerly ..
·AT&T CallVantage
·AT&T Southeast

Other Divisions

They have other divisions that are doing fairly well.

M owns spectrum for private radio use.
M makes law enforcement radio gear which is high margin
Recently bought Netopia, not a cash king, but has great channel with telecoms
M owns Good Software, decent software for phone sync

M is a great engineering company that has struggled making competitive mass market devices.

Still owns a part of Freescale, the joint venture with IBM that makes Power CPU's and other discrete microelectronics.

While handsets are a big loss, it is nowhere near what they lost trying to develop Windows NT for PowerPC. Iridium was a large loss but that was syndicated amongst bondholders.

You have to give them credit, they take risks, its just that they have lost too much on each one lately.

Goober

join:2000-12-17
Naperville, IL
·WOW Internet and C..
·Comcast


edit:
April 6th, @11:52AM

Re: Other Divisions

Freescale wasn't a joint venture with IBM. It was the old semiconductor division that was spun off.

When I was there, we all acknowledged and knew that Mot was never good in commodity businesses. Handsets have overall become commodity items now.
Forums » Motorola Cans Another 2,600 Employees


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