More bad news for ailing cellphone maker Motorola today. PhoneScoop reports that Motorola will be making some significant job cuts that could see upwards of 50% of the Motorola handset division being laid off. The cuts could happen as soon as this week, according to a source who is “familiar with Motorola’s plans.”
The news of more job cuts at Motorola comes on the heels of CES 2009 and continues the company’s string of job-cuts from last year. Financial problems have forced Motorola to significantly cut back on costs, and the workforce is usually where the first cuts are made. Unfortunately, Motorola’s financial hardships have started to spill over into its marketing coffers. Motorola is said to have pulled the plug on their CTIA Wireless 2009 exhibition booth, essentially removing their presence from the largest US wireless tradeshow.
Motorola will also be paring down its upcoming product portfolio. Rather than blitzing the market with various handsets ranging from the low- to high-end, Motorola will be focusing its efforts on no more than a dozen handsets for 2009. The move is presumably necessitated by a smaller workforce, but could help Motorola put out higher-quality handsets with stronger consumer appeal.
In a bit of bad news for fans of Windows Mobile-powered smartphones from Motorola, we’re also hearing that Motorola will be ditching the Windows Mobile platform in favor of the open-source Android OS for all future Motorola smartphones. The news falls in line with previous announcements that had Motorola preparing a social-networking smartphone based on the Android OS, as well as news that Motorola has been beefing up their Android-development team.
[Via: MobilityToday]