Comments on: Motorola May Spin Off Mobile Devices Unit: iPhone’s First Casualty?

By: thunder

thunder — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:12:05 +0000

give me break.. motorola will recover only when the mgmt changes.. once the mgmt recognizes that they are all there working for one company.. not for their own divisions.. mgmt just wants to get some good cash and leave…

By: Ham

Ham — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:59:04 +0000

Motorola is a wonderful company and is going to recover. It has a global reach. In Latin American market Motorola rules and leaves Nokia and Samsung far behind. Latin American market is enough to support Motorola until the recovery takes place. This happened with the Italian auto maker Fiat, who relied on its Brazilian factory and Latin American market, until coming to profit again. Don’t be mistaken. Motorola will recover.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:17:48 +0000

You are kidding right? This is a case of corporate suicide, not murder by iphone. Motorola did this to themselves.

By: Hyjak

Hyjak — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:59:43 +0000

@techmine

Rajiv is right in my opinion, i was given the I phone by a friend and while its a neat trendy toy I find that its closer to my lil brothers sidekick then my BlackBerry. Ok Its not a piece of shiz but it and the holy grail either. Its just a cute phone for hipsters. I have since re gifted my iphone to my lil brother who would rather have a Helio.

The Iphone hasnt had the impact that valley nerds think it has its not a craze but it sells well and its nowhere big enuff to cause companies to fall.

By: rubu

rubu — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:45:27 +0000

To win in the market Motorola needed to build products that appealed to the consumer.

By: techmine

techmine — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:35:34 +0000

@Rajiv…iPhone is a p.o.s until you have one. Go and get one, if you can and use it for atleast couple of weeks. Come back and post here..

By: Rajiv Singh

Rajiv Singh — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:41:59 +0000

iPhone is an overhyped p.o.s.

By: mark

mark — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:00:47 +0000

With the Razr, they repeated the same mistakes they made with the Startrac. Sit back and let it sell. Complacency is a second only to arrogance in corroding a company, but they often go hand-in-hand. It is a fast market and if you are not actively attacking your own product someone else will.

By: Drew Freyman

Drew Freyman — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:38:02 +0000

Motorola has been behind the technology curve on many occasions. In the 90s, when the mobile industry was shifting from analog to digital Motorola stubbornly concentrated on analog. Its late adoption of digital technologies like GSM almost killed the company then.

Also, Motorola is technology company that never quite learned consumer marketing. When cellular technology first crossed over Motorola was lucky because it happened to lead in the technology. However, as time passed, technologies were standardized and broadly adopted–everybody had them. To win in the market Motorola needed to build products that appealed to the consumer. It had its one-hit-wonders like the StarTac and Razr but never consistently offered a whole product line-ups that appealed to consumers generation after generation.

So, to attribute Motorola’s problems or strategy decisions to the changes brought on by the introduction of the iPhone may be shortsighted. There’s probably more to it than that.

By: dada

dada — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:36:45 +0000

what an incredible lack of perspective.

4 million iphones are definitely not the #1 factor in a market where over 1Bn units where shipped in 2007. motorola’s pretty much responsible for its own poor performance: everybody else seems to be doing just fine despite the iphone.

By: iPhone man

iPhone man — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:10:25 +0000

I always wondered how it is possible that Apple can just walk into a market and take it over. But Apple’s products are great and the execution is close to flawless. And other companies just flail about. I guess it take great leadership at the top to get it done.

By: techmine

techmine — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:03:14 +0000

At last those stupid RAZR phones will vanish from the market…Motorola could not get over the RAZR hangover…bound to happen.

By: Raj

Raj — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:08:17 +0000

Duncan,

Would you think the fact that Nokia has been increasing market share (> 40% now) has anything to do with that? Keep in mind that the smartphone market is but only a small segment of the larger pie and Motorola has been a disaster everywhere. For god’s sake - look at their emerging market strategy. It’s practically non-existent.

You should definitely look at how other companies viz. Nokia and Samsung have approached this space and how they have been able win.

-Raj

By: Paly

Paly — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:47:28 +0000

seems like only yesterday the razr was the hottest phone out there

By: Cesar Cardoso

Cesar Cardoso — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:42:30 +0000

TechCrunchers are so obsessed about the iPhone that forget to see the big picture.

Motorola lost the “regular” phones market to Nokia and Samsung. The low end is a disaster of same-looking phones (compare it to Nokia’s and Samsung’s). The middle and high end hasn’t caught the attention; the interesting PEBL was lost through a sea of RAZRs and the RAZR² failed to grab attention, while not only Nokia and Samsung, but also LG and Sony Ericsson had a sleuth of interesting phones.

On the enterprise smartphone front, Motorola had a hit with the Q CDMA, but was too late on the Q GSMs. And, on the multimedia smartphone front, Motorola launched the very good Z8 only to supercede it with the same phone with two or three changes, rechristened Z10, repeating the RAZR error.

Motorola’s problems has its own fault. But hey, iPhone on headlines attracts viewers and commenters

By: Duncan Riley

Duncan Riley — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:13:04 +0000

Stefan
true, but the iPhone changed the markt dynamics forever going forward. The announcement is post iPhone, and as a follow on post android, post garmin, post everything. They’ve held on for this long, the iPhone and the subsequent changes to the market changed their outlook to force them to this point

Alejandro
the iPhone figures were US, but Motorola has a global presence and its been performing fairly poorly everywhere. Stefan I’d note that I live in Western Australia, probably further removed from the Valley than you are, so if that remark was directed at me, it’s lost. Motorola is shite here as well

By: Former Motorola Employee

Former Motorola Employee — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:12:02 +0000

Motorola has struggled ever since it commodized the Razr. Don’t call it a bad company though. It’s largely responsible for making phones fashionable. The iPhone undoubtedly benefited from Motorola’s previous efforts. I don’t think this is the end of Motorola and mobile phones. There’s enough smart people in Mobile Devices that things can always be turned around.

By: Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:55:30 +0000

Alejandro: Try convincing people who live in Silicon Valley that.

Duncan Riley: Motorola was bleeding before the iPhone was even predicted by Apple enthusiasts.

By: Alejandro

Alejandro — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:45:35 +0000

I think you are talking about the US market and not global. US is not the world

By: Duncan Riley

Duncan Riley — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:37:27 +0000

Dirk,
I said 12 months in the post, but it was actually 200 days, astounding start.

By: Dirk Diggler

Dirk Diggler — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:30:14 +0000

The iPhone captured that amount in 6 months right? It was released during the summer of 07.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:15:37 +0000

Motorola has been losing market shares for a while now, even before the iPhone. It’s more of a bad company than anything. Credits should be given more to Nokia and RIM.

By: John Doe

John Doe — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:07:23 +0000

I think you meant “iPhones’ First Casualty”!!!