[Adam Licht @ Mar 26th 2008 1:25PM]

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.

[digitalh @ Mar 26th 2008 1:52PM]

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.

[Kawika @ Mar 26th 2008 8:24PM]

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?

[achates @ Mar 27th 2008 4:16PM]

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.