Motorola insider tells all about the fall of a technology icon
By Ryan Block 
posted Mar 26th 2008 1:04PM
posted Mar 26th 2008 1:04PM
In researching the myriad claims raised in this letter -- which we believe to be true -- we also discovered a number of other unsettling things about Motorola's corporate past in the last five years, such as certain gross corporate excesses demanded by Zander and his inner circle (like a small fleet of extravagant private jets, where most companies that size might only have one, if any), or the fact that Motorola's current CEO, Greg Brown, is so technologically out of touch he refuses to use a computer for communications, and has all his email correspondences printed by his secretary and replied to by dictation.
There's no doubt in our minds that Motorola is in dire straits. But today's news of the company's broken-off mobile division only serves to cement the fact that the company no longer knows how to conduct its core consumer business, and is squandering time and money as it flounders in a market that long since passed it by. Motorola did not comment on this story. Letter posted after the break.
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Dear Greg Brown, and the rest of the executive team at Motorola,
As you may or may not recall, I worked with Geoffrey Frost as a personal adviser during his days as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of the company. I was the one quoted in Forbes in 2003 as saying "Motorola's biggest problem is that Samsung kicks ass," and eventually came to spend nearly three years working with Geoffrey during his efforts to revamp the company's mobile lineup, which eventually saw the launch of the RAZR. As I told the company's senior designers at Motorola's 75th anniversary meeting: create something cooler (and more expensive) than anything else out there, and everyone will want it.
After the success of the RAZR, while Geoffrey was tied up every which way in ROKR development, meetings, criscrossing travel, and so on, through his associates I implored the company to beef up their software expertise, and focus on creating socially networked devices (this was in the years before MySpace and Facebook became the juggernauts they are today). Your predecessor, Ed Zander, had little interest in this, and instead insisted on parlaying his relationship with Steve Jobs into the ill-fated ROKR effort in order to prop up Motorola's stock price.
Zander, who seemed to care more about his golf score than running one of America's greatest technology companies, left all of the hard work to Geoffrey; I've always considered it Motorola's dirty little secret that the strategy for their entire profit machine was run by the company's CMO -- not the rest of the company's executives, who are as inept now as they have ever been.
Many close to Geoffrey believed Ed Zander worked him to death, putting the pressure of the fate of the company in his hands. [That was certainly the buzz around the industry at the time. -Ed.] I took his untimely death in 2005 very hard, and knew that the company would head downhill in the aftermath. On a personal note, Lynne, his wife blamed the company for his passing. She committed suicide soon after.
Meanwhile, Ed Zander continued to reap the dividends of Geoffrey's work as the company made billions in profit from overselling the RAZR for years. Instead of channeling that money into the obvious -- further development of groundbreaking consumer devices -- Zander purchased enterprise companies such as Symbol ($3.9b), and engineered billions of dollars in stock buybacks.
As I told Zander in a phone call in 2007, I felt that he was setting the company up for massive failure. He had the audacity to say, "Well, maybe Geoffrey should have come up with a better successor to the RAZR," and told me to "Wait for big things in 2008." I guess he was right -- the golden parachute he got for his exit from the company was worth about 30 million dollars -- and that doesn't include his accumulated Motorola stock.
Your appointment to the position of chief executive gave me cause for hope, and I reached out to you; I knew you were one of the main drivers behind the enterprise acquisitions, and that you had zero expertise in consumer devices. Surely you could use some help in turning Motorola's flagging cellphone business around?
But apparently different from the rest of the incompetent senior executives at Motorola -- except instead of merely being inept, you're actually actively killing the company. Your lack of understanding of the consumer side of Motorola doesn't give you a valid reason for selling the handset business; moreover, publicly disclosing your explorations of such a move, in an attempt to keep Carl Icahn off your back, shows how much you value the safety of your incompetence.
You clearly have no interest in fighting the good fight and attempting to mold Motorola into the market leader it can and should be. Taking control of the handset division, as you have recently announced, will accomplish very little except but to give you an ability to say, "We tried our best" -- which you haven't -- when you finally do cart the business off to the highest bidder.
In order to turn the handset division around, you need to bring in another Frost; someone worldly and dynamic who is more interested in Motorola's success than their own corporate career. You need to task the company's designers with the same mantra that created the RAZR -- make me a phone that looks, feels, and works like a symbol of wealth and privilege. Recognize the superiority of American software, and bring back those jobs so irresponsibly outsourced to China and Russia. Fully embrace embedded Linux and Google's Android initiative, and take the phone operating system out of the stone age.
Recognize that, while rich people don't really know what they want, the lower end of the market does -- and fund the development of an online "crowdsourced" device design platform to take advantage of this fact. Get rid of all of your silly, useless marketing, including those overpriced and completely ineffective celebrity endorsements, and do one unified global campaign with Daft Punk (the only group whose global appeal extends from American hip hoppers to trendy Shanghai club kids to middle-aged Londoners). Understand that the next big feature in handsets isn't a camera or a music player -- it is social connectedness; build expertise in this area, and sell it down the entire value chain.
I was there when Motorola's handset division was brought back from the brink of death 5 years ago. Follow my advice, and we can do it again.
Maybe it sounds like I take the downfall of Motorola personally; I do. It was my experience at Motorola, with people like Geoffrey and all of the loyal employees who still remain, that taught me what corporate America can and should be. But with people such as Zander and yourself, Motorola symbolizes the worst of our country's corporate culture.
As an immigrant American, and someone who has traveled all over the world, I really do appreciate the uniqueness and importance of the American culture of creativity and ingenuity. Whereas other countries back their money on gold and commodities, we back ours on our ability to invent the future. The failure of Motorola as an American institution of creativity and innovation, should you let it happen, will now be entirely of your doing. Hopefully you'll keep that in mind while the board has the accountants prepare your golden parachute.
Regards,
Numair Faraz
Dated Feb 5, 2008. Letter edited for form.
We need Steve Jobs to take over.
No! We need Icahn on board, he has been trying to get rid of that shitty CEO all along. I doubt he is out to destroy the value of his shareholding.
Steve will probably buy it for revenge when they made him the stupid and limited ROKR, and then send every moto employee to China to work sleepless nights to make him iphones :P
@CUBSWILLWIN
What are you talking about? Revenge? Steve is the one that forced Motorola to make the Rokr with the limitations.
Steve Jobs isn't the answer. I hope you're being facetious. The guy is already the visionary for one overwhelmingly successful company with a dominating mobile handset, doing another would only dilute that vision.
I do agree, however, that Motorola does need its own equivalent of a Steve Jobs. That letter was refreshing and expository, and explains what I think a lot of people have had on their minds; how Motorola could hit a brick wall after the success of the RAZR.
It's pretty obvious now that the company sat on its collective ass selling the damn product forever until nobody cared anymore. Then they did nothing about it. Get an engineer into the CEO position, get a marketing person into CEO, get ANYONE who gives a damn or knows a thing about mobile products. Hell, get Ryan Block over there.
What's ironic is that from the sound of this letter, a majority of Engadget and Engadget Mobile readers are probably more qualified to be CEO than Greg "Kill Moto Dead" Brown.
Yeah the comment was a joke but yes someone equivalent to Steve Jobs. I think the company just milked all its products and is now trying to bang all the money out of the company. Its always stupid people that make big decisions.
If this were the 90's Jobs couldn't take over. He was WAY too busy running his company into the ground. Until Jonathan Ive(designer of iMac, iPod) and his design team came and pulled his smug ass out of the fire. Apple is what it is today not because of Steve Jobs, but in spite of Steve Jobs.
He wnated a phone that worked with itunes so yes he forced motorala to do it. But revenge fro making the phone so bad.
Yes style over substance is exactly what motorola needs!
Everyone I know who has ever worked at Motorola says it's Dilbert-land.
The fact that their boss doesn't know how to use e-mail doesn't surprise me.
Sorry Brian F but you don't know what you are talking about.
@Neil: I bet Apple wanted the ROKR to succeed as much as anyone - it was their first iPhone and they thought they could do it with Motorola. Turned out Moto insisted on producing a turd - the looks of the ROKR alone should make it perfectly clear that Apple had no influence on this design.
Apple's revenge was to introduce the ROKR at the same time as the iPod nano. It was a bit cheeky in a "see that's what the device of the future should look like"-way but honestly also the only way to prevent a PR disaster.
@brian f: Not sure what you mean by your comment-Apple? Remember that Apple was headed for the toilet *before* Jobs came back, it was Jobs that created the iMac, Jobs that cannibalized the corpse of NeXTStep to make OS X, Jobs who showed the industry that design matters. It was the old-line business dudes who messed Apple up, and it looks like the same thing is happening at Motorola. Years of the same tired design with minor variations-it's a testament to the original RAZR that they still have a handset business to sell.
wow. great read ... so sad to see moto end like this.
It's ironic because in Cantonese(a kind of Chinese, not all chinese speak Putonghua or Mandarin)
Motorola means no more bussiness.
Ironic but so true
@ nDee
actually, moto would literally "no head" which in turn would translate more into someone who is stupid.
same with if you said used the phonetics from motorola in chinese. and yes, i speak cantonese. fluently. since i was 2.
@coab
cool, you speak cantonese, but are you from hong kong? if you are, then surely you've heard of 冇得撈喇
apologies to everyone else for typing chinese :)
I mourn for you Moto, I mourn. You are not alone
Not alone indeed.
Commodore and Digital both seemed to rest on their past achievements too long.
Hello-.... Goodbye Moto
I just don't get why they're doing so badly. I know plenty of people who are still buying their phones. I mean I just bought three of them for my family 2 months ago. The hardware isn't bad even though the software could be better. They still have a decent brand perception among the general public, if they'd just get their asses in gear they could probably pull out of this.
I've never met a single person who owns (or owned) a RAZR that doesn't say "this phone is a worthless piece of trash."
...and i know plenty of people who have or have had RAZRs.
i don't know where you get the idea that they still have good market perception, but that's not been the case in my experience. (anecdotally.)
Jeff's anecdotal experience is radically different from mine - the non-tech people I know who have RAZRs have valued them highly. That may be based more on the physical design than on software or performance, but the people in question use voice calling and occasional texting and find the phone perfectly adequate.
*smirks*
My HS850 headset was CRAP. EXPENSIVE crap
Same with the second one i got (thinking the first may have been faulty)
The HT820 BT headphones were uncomfortable, tinny sound, people couldn't hear me well, and fell apart easily
The H700 i currently have (given to me as a gift, I did not buy it)similar issues as the HS850. dont use it anymore.
the S9's LOOKED cool but were uncomfortable, sounds was decent, but phone calls only came in MONO on one ear. and ended up giving my neck issues with the way it hung on my head. My BF who currently uses them sounds like he is talking into a speakerphone half the time.
the Plantronics Pulsars i have right now sound better overall (little lacking on the high, but more bass than he S9) thought he control design i will give to the s9's (better control design by far)
Basically, pretty much EVERYTHING motorola I have dealt with was subpar and expensive
I realize that a lot of people HAVE had issues w/ Motorola phones, but for the GENERAL PUBLIC they are well liked. Apparently their BT headsets are crap, but I wouldn't know. I think most people who are not technically inclined and readers of Tech Blogs like them.
Moto is still market leader in the US -- but mobile phones are a global market, and they've lost everywhere else. Losing the US is inevitable if, as is rumored, their pipeline of new products has nothing innovative.
I used to own an Nokia, the cheap crappy kind, not even flip phone, everyone at work made fun of it, etc. Went out and spent $200 on a nice Motorola, and I hate it. I'd give anything to be rid of this piece of crap. I'll never buy a Motorola again, and I'll probably dig up my old Nokia and get service transferred back to it before my contract ends.
Wow, thats a hard hitting letter. This answers quite a few of the questions I had about motorola.
I believe this will fall on deaf ears...........
Motorola, to a large extent, represents a much deeper problem within American society, and indeed illustrates the battle for the soul of the American consumer. What we're seeing today is the generational gap between the Baby Boomers and their children. People in their 50s and over who run many of America's major corporations view the computer and the internet as a tool, because that's where they were first exposed to it: at work. The younger members of society view it as an opportunity, having grown up watching it grow with them. The driving force behind many of the corporate closures we've seen in the last ten years has to do primarily with the failure of a company to embrace technology and to use it to streamline their business. There are a great many young, talented, and eminently disenfranchised people who labor as fast food workers during the day, but who develop the next great innovation in a dark room in front of a computer screen at night. The difference is that they don't seek to market and profit from their ideas and labor; instead, they give it back and let others build from it.
Motorola's fall from grace could easily have been avoided had they chosen to learn from the success of the RAZR and built on it. Instead, they hand out rehashed versions of old technology and warmed over designs that do nothing to inspire. That's why, after I replaced my V9 with a RAZR, I replaced my RAZR with a BlackBerry instead. I know a lot of people that have done the same, and will do the same in the months and years to come.
Well said, Adam. THIS should be posted in every boardroom...
Now, as for this:
"Motorola's current CEO, Greg Brown, is so technologically out of touch he refuses to use a computer for communications, and has all his email correspondences printed by his secretary and replied to by dictation."
Please tell me this is a joke.
Dictation? Seriously? How in the world could a technology company as famed for innovation as Motorola used to be hire someone so seemingly out of touch with his market? From a BusinessWeek article here: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071130_854706.htm
"Prior to joining Motorola, Mr. Brown was chairman and CEO of Micromuse Inc., a network management software company. Before that, he was President of Ameritech Custom Business Services and Ameritech New Media Inc. Before joining Ameritech in 1987, Mr. Brown held a variety of sales and marketing positions with AT&T for five years, resulting in 25 years of high-tech experience."
And he doesn't use a computer? Is this for real?
I'm not going to defend Motorola management at all, but saying it's "simple" to come up with successors to iconic products is wrong - most companies that have had breakaway consumer products have failed to produce another equivalent winner.
As to reading one's e-mail on-line - I suspect most CEOs read their mail in print, simply because they can do that in the car or plane or during holes in meetings. A CEO's life is about face-to-face interaction; carrying or using a laptop is just a distraction.
Who is Icahn? I dont think i have ever heard of him/her!
Google him and watch the 60 Minutes video segment on how he hacks the inept corporate boards,
good riddance Moto, two phones (startac and razr) for a lifetime of crappy does not cut for a technological advances
He's a corporate raider, whipping badly performing companies into shape.
They will sell the cell phone division and keep to making set top boxes and chips
Uh Maybe you haven't heard but Mot hasn't made chips in a few years. Does the name Freescale mean anything to you?
So very sad and humbling. Motorola just never could adapt to the new role handset makers play in the mobile space.
This is what happens when you lets MBA's run a business! Every company in the USA should have this posted in every boardroom hall and walkway.
huh? What do MBAs have to do with this? This is basically a result of greedy, incompetent folks making wide decisions. Based on what I hear, they don't come off as very ethical either (sucking a declining business for private jets?!?!?). And I've seen my share of engineers and business folks who fit the same profile. Ultimately, if the person is incompetent or dishonest, it doesn't matter what his qualifications are.
FYI, I'm an engineer with a graduate degree, currently working towards my MBA. Bad people are just bad - degrees don't help ...
He's talking about all those "executives" whose only claim to fame is working in the executive pools of other companies based solely on their MBAs. I've personally seen a crappy web-programmer here climb his way up the ladder with just his MBA.
You don't want these people in leadership positions in technology companies.
Greg Brown doesn't have an MBA
The guy has the right idea, but I'll tell you what's killing off Motorola. The RAZR wasn't good, it was complete garbage, the only thing it had going for it was the novelty factor. When they first started rolling out the V300, V400, and V600 those were great phones... but far from perfect, they had a notorious reliability issue and buggy OS. However, the development of the hardware and software stopped there, worse yet they completely failed to address their reliability issue... such that when the RAZR came out, all it was was a repackaged V600 with the same shitty OS and the same reliability issues. The only thing it had going for it was the slim novelty factor which managed to move millions of units and propped up the company for a few years more.
Motorola has some great engineers working for it, the problem lies with their management just as Faraz has pointed out. The company has completely lost touch with the consumer phone industry and as such has absolutely nothing new to put into the market for competition. Motorola has the resources to be a market leader, the only thing holding it back is the terrible management it currently has.
Um, I really beg to differ with your comment about RAZR's being crap.
I've had several for 3 years, and they are rock-solid. No reliabilty issues at all. Are you basing your comments on actual use or what others have said?
The RAZRs I had felt great (magnesium case), had a great size to them (perfectly usable keyboard - not this 'chicklet' small button shit on 90% of cell phones) and worked like a champ. As far as software went, hey, mine were verizon and I blame them for disabling features, including Bluetooth.
But to call the RAZR crap is complete bull.
@David
The hardware design was good but it hid the major problem with all Moto phones - the software on it stunk!
The UI is one of the most painful messes I've ever come across. The address book wouldn't even let you search by more than one letter at a time - utterly useless if you had more than 100 contacts.
And then we come to Moto's great Linux strategy. It was going to save us all from Moto's existing crappy software. Except it didn't because it doesn't even support 3G. Oh dear, Moto.
Not that I'm 100% behind the iPhone, but I mean how can Motorola compete against it? Apple's the one company (beyond Moto's own execs) that's hurting Motorola itself. The foolish ROKR sucked and the iPhone blew the RAZR off the map!
The only thing Motorola can do is apply iPhone features to the RAZR. Beyond that Apple has it all!
Motorola isn't going to make a candy-bar phone to compete with the iPhone. Flip phones are what people want! Because they're slim and light.
The iPhone only won because of it's elegant simplicity and beauty... That still doesn't mean people want bricks!
Moto still has a chance to merge the iPhone into a RAZR, but once Apple comes out with the iPhone Flip, it's GAME OVER!
Moto would haft to do a iPhone/RAZR hybrid! And do it damn, quick to save themselves!
The next RAZR doesn't need to be an iPhone, nor a Blackberry, or anything like that. It should just bring a little innovation with its current form-factor!
cswallow: The iPhone is still a premium product, and it didn't kill the RAZR - every phone from LG, Sony, and Samsung did. Moto was dying long before Steve Jobs trotted onto that stage.
None of Moto's currently lineup can begin to compare with the competition coming from LG, Samsung, and Sony. All of them have better features and software (especially the software) than Motorola. It's hardly a surprise they're in this position.
You might not be aware of this, but "candybar" phones are the most popular phones in Europe, flip-phones are mainly American.
Flip phones are the most popular in Japan, probably rest of Asia, also.
Really??? Seems like everyone has slider phones here in korea.
Just had to bring Apple into this didn't you. Apple isn't the only company on the consumer mobile phone market you know...
>The next RAZR doesn't need to be an iPhone, nor a Blackberry, or anything like that.
>It should just bring a little innovation with its current form-factor!
I disagree. Up to three years ago your statement would make sense. But today, the whole deal about cellphones is software, not hardware. The iPhone is cool because of its interface, not because of its hardware. Except its big touchscreen (even its special usage is a software thing), the iPhone is not the most modern phone out there hardware-wise. And yet it sells like hotcakes, and that's because of its unique software and usability.
Motorola should have fully invested in a next-gen OS, like their Linux lineup which received very little love from main MOTO corp and was instead only developed for the Asian markets. Their EZX touchscreen Linux phones were shunned by MOTO US. And that was their big failure, because they had 4 years to perfect it.
@ Eugina
Actually, the touch screen is more than just software. No previous touchscreen has really been able to interface with multiple touch points. Its a hardware/software combo.
@marcus: Nope. There are real multi-touch applications out there (though they don't use capacitative touch screens), but Apple's "multi-touch" is all software. The iPhone's touch screen is no more advanced than an ordinary laptop touch pad - it's all in how you interpret the info.
People are moving to slider phones with large screens here in japan. The flip is mainstream but was fashion 2 years ago.
Horrible.
Good thing I didnt accept that job into Mobile Devices last year
dude has emails read to him and dictates responses? is he being fanned with a giant leaf and fed grapes during this process?
"as it flounders in a market that long since passed it by."
For God's sake, the word is FOUNDERS. A flounder is a kind of fish. This is one of those words whose meaning is changing through plain and simple misuse.
Anyway, 2 years ago Motorola was on top of the mobile world. I don't see how you can say the market has "long since passed it by". You and everyone else should know by now how volatile the mobile market is; the only guarantee is that the company on top right now probably won't be 2 years from now. The rankings are always flip-flopping around. To suggest that Motorola's out of it for good is at best speculative.
flounder –verb (used without object) 1. to struggle with stumbling or plunging movements (usually fol. by about, along, on, through, etc.):
He saw the child floundering about in the water.
2. to struggle clumsily or helplessly:
He floundered helplessly on the first day of his new job.
founder
–noun - a person who founds or establishes.
Jeff, if you're going to correct someone's usage of a word, at least know the correct usage before you open your big mouth.
@Jeff
Pwnage.
@James Bowe
Founder is ALSO a verb meaning to fall down or collapse.
Both founder AND flounder would have been appropriate. Those who are voting Jeff down and voting James up need to read more than myspace postings and test messages...
@Karl, We're voting down Jeff because he incorrectly stated that Engadget used a word incorrectly. It doesn't matter that the word Jeff suggested was correct or not.
Get with the program!
founder 2 |ˈfaʊndər| |ˈfaʊndə|
verb [ intrans. ]
(of a ship) fill with water and sink : six drowned when the yacht foundered off the Florida coast.
• figurative (of a plan or undertaking) fail or break down, typically as a result of a particular problem or setback : the talks foundered on the issue of reform.
• (of a hoofed animal, esp. a horse or pony) succumb to laminitis.
jeff.justgotowned.com
EPIC FAIL!
Too bad we share the same first name...
Not according to Dictionary.com:
flounder
noun
1. flesh of any of various American and European flatfish
2. any of various European and non-European marine flatfish
verb
1. walk with great difficulty; "He staggered along in the heavy snow" [syn: stagger]
2. behave awkwardly; have difficulties; "She is floundering in college"
This sums up America's corporation problem quite nicely. Execs sit back collecting money while running a company into the ground. Then they turn around and blame the techincal people (no it isn't an increase in Technical visas that we need Bill). And of course since the special interest groups own capital hill these guys just keep going and going. What we need is to put these free loaders into prison (one with the crotch bitters) to do their freeloading.
Well said. Reading the letter and the comments paint a picture where Motorola, and similar companies that are governed similarly, are worse than the terrorists that we hear about everyday.
"Well said. Reading the letter and the comments paint a picture where Motorola, and similar companies that are governed similarly, are worse than the terrorists that we hear about everyday"
I bet Osama reads his own e-mails. :P
Lol of course Osama does, he also takes videos and uploads them to a FTP to spread it around
What a great letter. The corporate greed referenced in that letter should not be tolerated. Moto is a publicly owned company? Time for the stock-holders to roll some heads (figuratively speaking, of course)
Why "figuratively"? If a exec's new their heads were going to roll, they might man up and do their jobs or step out of the way.
Regarding Moto. They did fine until they stopped reinvesting in their company. The V60 and V600 were great, even the RAZR was good for a while, at which point Moto hit a wall and stopped innovating. There must be something criminal in NOT reinvesting the TONS of money they made off the RAZR.
@Chris: Because "figuratively" means that it's a metaphor, as opposed to "literally," which would mean he meant that they should actually decapitate the execs.
What is wrong with people these days that they don't know the most basic English vocabulary? Or for that matter, if they don't know, they can't take two seconds to type "define: figurative" into Google or m-w.com
Excellent letter. I wonder if we should offer our ophone concept to Moto as I am designing it as a social networking device. (Possibly powered by Android.) (See ophone.com for a tease.) Motorola have great engineers and pioneered the mobile/cell/car phone industry. If they can harness their assets once again, perhaps there is hope?
Please don't The website is a joke and the phone itself will fail. It's junk.
ok that was the biggest waste of my time ever. What a crappy website no information no nothing. Troll some place else.
It looks like a metal drink coaster.
google define: fail
and end up at ophone.com
Ha the Ceo didn't even use a computer and got his emails printed out. I'm just gonna say that I am sure there are lots of CEO's who are doush bags and just want profit. But But that Razor is awesome R.I.P Motorola you had a nice run
HA! Daft Punk. That's your brilliant plan? RIP Moto...
Current Motorola CEO, Greg Brown may be “technologically out of touch”, but not because he “has all his email correspondences printed by his secretary and replied to by dictation”. Every top CEO does this because of LAWYERS and possible litigation issues.
Not sure where you get your information, but that's completely wrong. I can name a long list of tech CEOs that read and reply to their own email.
As one of those lawyers, you are both correct. A conversation of any sensitivity should be conducted in person or over the phone, never in email.
Can you reply to some blogger's email? Sure.
Can you reply to your general counsel's email? Never, and why the hell is he emailing you in the first place?
Many executives (and attorneys) never use internal email. If it's external, that's fine because you inherently realize it's public. If it's internal, you have a tendancy to turn down your filter.
It's truly a sad situation. I still have the hope that something or someone will turn this around, An American company can't or shouldn't have such an end.
I remember being a geeky, fresh out of high school, cell phone salesman right at Moto's peak. I thought the v60 was sexy but then shortly after I started the v300 was released and I had never seen anything like it. The screen quality was incredible, it had a camera and there was the internet in the palm of my hand; AMAZING. Then came the RAZR, and while I was disappointed there were no major upgrades to the v300 except the bigger screen (LOVE) I drooled a little bit the first time I laid hands on $600 worth of communication glory. About that time I got an MPX200 and while I can't really remember why I got rid of it I look back now and think that must have been one of my favorite phones of all time, if not a little bulky. The need for the latest and greatest pushed me on to an SDA though. In some ways I think that marked the beginning of the end of Motorola. I may not be the most important customer in the world, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that switched over to HTC right around that time. Moto was never really relevant again, except perhaps it's miserable failing with the ROKR, and the only significance there was in cementing the fact that Apple would have to make it's own phone. I mourn those days now.
A few other people that I would become great friends with and I were starting off in a business that held the promise of the future. We had a lot of good times in that wide eyed world of burgeoning technology and it felt great to be on the leading edge. How quickly we became jaded though as manufacturers like Moto stuck with the same staid designs and specs and the carriers slowly became more and more restrictive and pushed revenues higher and higher until finally working there was no longer fun and a half dozen people who were the best of friends working extra hours just to hang out with each other slowly split off and moved away and on to other jobs. I can't help but see parallels between Motorola and my own personal journey and how fitting that it's near demise marks the end of the near demise of my friendships with those people I worked with early on. It's been a couple months now since I've talked to them; a quick hello around the holidays and I fear now that I have no idea where any of them are now, just as I have no clue what will become of a once great technology company. Brendan, Kristin, Steve, Shawn, Ben and Kaytee, if any of you reads this we all need to get back in touch. Who knows, maybe Motorola will give us all positions on their board and we can bring back the good old days...
Requiescat in pace, it was a helluva ride.
pssst. nobody cares about you and your relation ship with your friends.
Are you jealous because you haven't had 6 real friends in your entire life? It's apocryphal and I care less what you think than people care about my friends.
Motorola peaked as a company in 2003/04? Really?
It's cellphone division did. I'd expand that a little and call it 02-05
I just choose not to discuss my friendships on a gadget blog.
I worked in research at Mot during the whole Razr boom to bust. We had these surveys the employee would fill out every year.
I remember one question was about did we think Motorola had any future vision. The entire technology office generally said no. I knew it was bad news when the innovators saw no future in the company.
Numair's letter is right on the money and states many of the reasons why I had to leave.
Hello Moto.
I will turn around Motorola for 100k a year + 1 million for every year I work there. Seriously what do you have to lose?
I will do it for free, just to prove I can.
I don't follow cellphone news that closely, but I had wondered how Motorola managed to make such a huge splash with the RAZR, then disappear back into craphole they came from. Guess that mystery is solved for me.
As a small note in the midst of a despair-filled letter - a Daft Punk celebrity endorsement would certainly be enough to turn my head. I know what I want, and that wouldn't be enough to make me buy a phone by itself, but it would get Moto phones more attention from me than they do now.
The only thing special about the iPhone is that it's a clean-sheet of paper design with a very specific focus. Nokia, SE, and RIM haven't dared to start from scratch to that extent. Moto even less.
But the statement 'innovate or die' was never more true; another example of greed stifling innovation.
The only Motorola phone I've owned is a Q. Although it's a couple of years old now, it still works well and does so within a sleek, lightweight design. I switched to the Q from a Treo 700wx because the Treo was (is) fat and heavy, and have tried several other devices since then, including the Q9c, Blackberry 8130, and an HTC mogul. I found myself goping back to my old Q each time with a sigh of relief and less of a load in my pocket.
I hope they can come up with some more "magic" devices and save the company.
Wow...
Numair forgot that...
1) Moto's 3G lineup is pathetic, to say the least, in a world that competitors are moving their 3G phones to mid- and low-tier. Moto needs BADLY a 3G lineup.
2) Moto's multimedia phones is a one-trick pony: ROKR, ROKR and more ROKR. ZINE's 5Mpx cameraphone is at least a year late - and should have Z8's video recording capabilities.
3) 5 years and no 3G phone. Time to get a new Linux team, Motorola, time to get a new Linux team. Or at least get a REAL Linux devel team outside Beijing, in a place where 3G matters.
4) Oh. And shove IMMEDIATELY any new V3. Get a proper burial of the RAZR.