Holiday Gift Guide »

Motorola appoints new leadership for handset business

By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 6:15 PM

There really aren’t words to describe Motorola’s fall from glory. Perhaps words like spectacular, incredible, amazing were apt descriptions of Motorola’s once giant-footprint on the global wireless stage. But, today, those same words could be used to describe the company’s almost perplexing fall from up high.

Motorola’s leadership has failed, since the days of Ed Zander and now with Greg Brown’s arguable ineptitude, to capitalize on their fantastic success with the RAZR lineup of slimMotorola fail flip-phones. And, following quarter after quarter of massive net losses due to its handset manufacturing business, Motorola has attempted to turn their wayward ship around with repeated job-cuts and confused corporate restructuring. Most significantly, Motorola has decided to spin-off its handset business, in hopes that it can still make money from its cellphone-making business.

But, the problem Motorola is currently facing is rooted in the company leadership’s apparent inability to, at once, find good executive managers of its various cellphone divisions and refusal to cut-off its useless heads and start fresh.

To help remedy their current problems, Motorola has appointed new leadership for its handset divisions in the China/Taiwan, Asia-Pacific, EMEA, and North American markets.  Motorola has seen massive market share losses in all regions, but perhaps the most damaging is Moto’s decline in its home market – the US. Once a US handset market giant, Motorola is now dangerously close to being passed up by Samsung and LG in terms of market share.

And, with Motorola’s next big hit, the 5-megapixel Kodak-branded Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5 cameraphone, slated for an initial launch in China, Motorola’s future in the US questionable. Rather than concentrating on taking back its single largest and home market, Motorola is hocking its wares in lesser markets – which may be a sign that Motorola itself realizes the ZN5 may not fly all that high in the US.

Whatever the case, we can only hope that Motorola’s leadership can at least build a marketable handset business so that another manufacturer can come in and turn things around. Otherwise, our beloved Motorola will shrink away in to network-equipment obscurity.

[Via: ChicagoBusiness]

SPONSORED MESSAGE
Get free domestic and international calls and texts to anyone with the Vonage Mobile app available as an iPhone calling app or Android calling app.

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • Xen

    “Rather than concentrating on taking back its single largest and home market, Motorola is hocking its wares in lesser markets – which may be a sign that Motorola itself realizes the ZN5 may not fly all that high in the US.”
    Really…. America has been the hotbed of all the latest Moto phones for the past deacde. They are not launching in America because Telecom companies are NOT allowing it to, since Sprint or Verizon have nothing to gain from revenue perspective by having a 5Mpx phone in their lineup.
    Plz do your research before mud slinging on any company, espically Motorola.( which is happeniing a lot these days, apperently some people think thats cool )

  • Raidium

    @Xen, why do people insist on saying that the moderators of this site don’t do their research when writing these posts? Doesn’t anyone understand that its sort of their jobs (as the moderators of this site, ofcourse) to do their research? Seriously man, if you think you can do a better job at keeping us, the public, in the know about whats happing with the mobile world then maybe you and all the others that challenge the intellegence of the moderators should make your own site.

    @Kosta, what is with the “mines wuz bettaa”? If you put “mine was better” it says the same thing but makes you look smarter. :razz: