Motorola gets snubbed again, Samsung won't be buying either

It looks like Motorola is fast running out of potential suitors for its cellphone business, with Samsung now joining LG and Sony Ericsson is saying that it has no interest in picking up the division that Motorola is supposedly still "committed" to. Specifically, Samsung's Choi Gee-sung said that Motorola would not make a good "supplement" for the company, and that there are "many overlapping areas and little to gain," which pretty much echoes the sentiment from the two aforementioned companies. Despite increasingly appearing like the player no one wants to pick for their team, however, some unspecified "analysts" think that the division valued at $9 to 12 billion could eventually find a buyer, and they're throwing around names like Huawei and even Dell as possibilities. Needless to say, we'll believe that last one when we see it.

[Via mocoNews.net]

[paragraph @ Feb 12th 2008 3:46PM]

"valued at $9 to 12 billion"

I won't pay a cent more than $8.95!

Call me when you're ready to sell to me Moto!

It really does look like noone wants to say hello to moto :\

[Sarcasticone @ Feb 12th 2008 3:47PM]

Motorola: Awww! Guys, I wanna play too!

[Cahlito @ Feb 12th 2008 3:50PM]

Goodbye Moto
:cue Motorola tune:

[Froggy @ Feb 12th 2008 3:55PM]

maybe Google will buy it, put Android on it, and run it over the 700MHz network it will build. :D FTW!!!

[ET @ Feb 12th 2008 4:17PM]

Motorola doesn't have the hardware to run Android, their OS is still the self developed chessy menu from 3 years ago.

[Stephen @ Feb 12th 2008 10:13PM]

of course they have the hardware to run android... it's just linux... the question is whether or not it makes sense for google to buy moto

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Feb 12th 2008 3:55PM]

> we'll believe that last one when we see it.

At least in past Dell had the silly habit of saying "we can do better than Apple."

Apple is in mobile phone market now. I'd watch Dell very carefully.

Convergence of the markets doesn't happen just yet - but overlap start appearing with many people trading laptops for smartphones.

[taoprophet420 @ Feb 12th 2008 4:00PM]

What if apple used its 16 billion is cash to buy it. From failed Rokr to owner of the company, that would be a hell of a change.

[BrokenFERN @ Feb 12th 2008 4:02PM]

I have about $1.75 in my pocket... Okay I'll buy it. But I want a receipt!

[ET @ Feb 12th 2008 4:19PM]

The minute you buy MOT, you just start owing hundreds of millions of debts. It's not even worth $1

[Todd @ Feb 12th 2008 4:04PM]

The big M has become the Ralph Wiggum of the handset world.

[mac @ Feb 12th 2008 4:43PM]

Me fail the handset business? That's unpossible!

[DWells55 @ Feb 12th 2008 8:47PM]

The two of you just combined for one of the greatest comment-reply combos ever seen on Engadget.

[Jon @ Feb 12th 2008 4:20PM]

Maybe they can concentrate a little more on their cable set top box business & make some more reliable boxes now.

[martin @ Feb 12th 2008 4:29PM]

motorola u suck! u can have my L6 back though. u can sell it for funds.

[friendlyner @ Feb 12th 2008 4:38PM]

I liken this to Chrysler asking Honda if they wanted to buy the K-car platform.

Um, no, we have something better already. But thx.

[Adam @ Feb 12th 2008 4:44PM]

They were the first cell phone, show some respect. Without Motorola the cell phone industry would have been a lot different. They may have gone downhill, but they still played a BIG roll.

[Daza @ Feb 13th 2008 2:38AM]

Down-hill, big roll, lol.

[CanCar @ Feb 12th 2008 4:53PM]

In my personal opinion Motorola has not known to position between the cellphones giants. Motorola´s technology is not the best one, so Nokia, LG and Samsung offer better products. Sony Ericsson phones even offer better technology. My experience with Motorola was not satisfactory. www.jobdiscrimination. info

[tanooki2003 @ Feb 12th 2008 4:53PM]

I'll buy Motorola. Over Here! Over Here!

I will buy Motorola for $4.95 (not trillions, billions, millions, thousands, hundreds, or even tens)

I would buy for $34.25 but my V360 was such a total disastrous nightmare

[LiQuiD_FuSioN @ Feb 13th 2008 12:01AM]

I still use a V360 right now. Got it overseas to be exact without any T-Mobile sticker slapped onto it.

It's a pretty solid phone with a nice display.. when it doesn't shut off randomly. Holding off on buying a new phone for now. ;)

[BigD145 @ Feb 12th 2008 5:16PM]

Motorola makes decent phones. It's the cell phone providers that gut the hardware through their own software. Sometimes you're given the privilege of spending extra money to unlock things like, music without a network connection and provider software, and sometimes not. F U providers!

[SteveS @ Feb 12th 2008 5:30PM]

MICROSOFT!

Seriously, I think Motorola would make a good acquisition for Microsoft. That way MS could easily "Zune" their way into the cell-phone hardware market...

[3rdsun @ Feb 12th 2008 7:29PM]

with Sidekick and Motorola in their pocket MS would be still at the bottom of the cellular handset game

[Ricardo @ Feb 12th 2008 5:44PM]

So, basically Motorola failed on their Linux + Java business. Well, at least Google will have other sources of income when they fail too.

[tan @ Feb 12th 2008 7:53PM]

Maybe Microsoft or Google will buy them out? :)

seriously. Both company seem like continue to fight on every single platform they can get their foot print on.

But for google...it is tough to have all the all motorola way of doing things change since both company uses different management style on how employee should work.

[skulldriveshaft @ Feb 12th 2008 8:07PM]

If Motorola can't make money with their own stuff, who the hell else is gonna know what to do with it?

This is gonna be for someone that can afford to burn billions while restructuring with new talent.

There are only a few companies with the ability to even come close to it, but right those companies are dealing with their own multi-year headaches.

It would be a better idea to negotiate with creditors, bring in some hardware & software talent, and nail a solid device that doesn't need to be subsidized. Carriers have spent $$$$$$$ on pushing Motorola product, they're gonna be hungry for new deals if things don't settle down soon.

[Stephen @ Feb 12th 2008 10:16PM]

I think it's a matter of leadership. Apple was a sinking ship until Jobs returned to save them. Motorola just needs someone at the helm that is willing to take on carriers who dictate what they want and don't want on phones (and ruin the product) and is visionary. There is no shortage of super qualified engineers at moto

[potato @ Feb 12th 2008 10:39PM]

Moto only needs SOFTWARE talent. I've always felt their phones to be fine hardware-wise. They have the same hardware features as everyone else, and their industrial design is alright, if not a little uninspired.

The biggest problem is the Moto software. It's slow, it's laggy, it crashes a lot, Java barely functions... The software is pure shite.

Overhaul the Moto software into something sleek, fast, and stable, and make some more interesting shapes... and Moto will be a winner again.

[skulldriveshaft @ Feb 12th 2008 11:05PM]

Good points so far, but those sound like marketing slogans and good cheer stuff.

If Motorola still has no shortage of super qualified engineers, they've been on a sabbatical lately.

I don't think it was a matter of taking on carriers that create crippled versions of phones, it's more along the lines of lazy programming. Where a kludge is thrown into the software, instead of the software being reformed to the negotiated format of the carrier. They've already gotten the hardware sale to the carrier, the carrier already has you in a contract, nobody gives a shit anymore after that point.

Motorola has maybe 6 months at most to restructure if the crazed predictions are actually true, but in the end they're gonna have to protect their shareholders, and that might just come down to a fire sale.

[Karter @ Feb 20th 2008 11:54AM]

First off, MOT phones suck, with the exception of their walkie talkie phones (nextel - now sprint - which pioneered Push to Talk).
No one wants the division because they have a disfunctional design team with unimaginative people (with the exception of their industrial design team which does the hardware design).
The sad part is that the division has several smart engineers and you'll probably start seeing a mass exodus if not already.