Motorola slashing 20% of its research division

Another month, another round of layoffs over at Moto. This time, we're seeing 120 out of the 600 positions in Motorola Labs -- the unit responsible for researching pretty much everything ranging from handsets to radio technology -- slashed; another 180 are "being reassigned to work in individual business units." According to the company, the moves from Moto Labs "will help R&D teams work with their business partners to optimize R&D investment and focus on projects that deliver the greatest value for Motorola," though your guess is as good as our as to what that actually means. Granted, we wouldn't normally support hacking off a good part of your innovation department, but given Moto's state right now, it seems to us like they they need development a hell of a lot more than they do research.

[waiownsyou @ Jun 12th 2008 7:23PM]

Good for Motorola, especially after all the researchers there were researching ways to resell the same damn RAZR.

[rektide @ Jun 12th 2008 7:48PM]

uh, the folly of PEBL and KRZR and FLA.2 was mostly executive powers over milking what they thought was their golden cow. they thought they could just put out clones and people would eat them with the same voracious appetite. research was presenting new things, exec powers just wanted more of the same thinking the profits would keep rolling in.

exec's did the exact same thing with the #1 phone in the year for like 5 years straight, the StarTach. amazing phone, but the business side never supported making a digital version, so it predictably died horribly as soon as analog service shut down.

thankfully motorola spun off one of its most innovate technology leaders, their semiconductor division. i dont know why exactly, but i like to think its because they had no idea what to do with these hot shots integrated circuit guys, and they might as well stop trying to tell them what to do. freescale continues to make leading edge integrated systems and is competitive to this day.

why you think researchers would willingly spend all their time trying to clone a phone they've already made four times is beyond comprehension.

[j_g_puff @ Jun 12th 2008 8:02PM]

rektide, you're exactly right. IMO this is the beginning of the end for motorola's mobile phone division, or at least the beginning of a major overhaul. Dumping researchers in financially difficult times is a sign of a dying company.

Ironically, i think it was probably lack of R&D which caused this mess. After the success of the RAZR, they just didn't seem to build on it. At the time of the first RAZR it was widely regarded as the most stylish phone around, certainly ahead of its competitors. Now, spurred on by the nauseatingly iconic iPhone, everyone's pushing the style angle. If Motorola had started innovating all those years back (and if they'd fixed their God-awful UI) they could have been heading the game today.

Still, its easy to criticise. I'm sure I would have wrecked their shit years ago if i'd been in charge.

Does anyone know how much of the company is in mobile phones? I'm fairly sure they have loads of other stuff going on too. I wonder why they didn't hang on to Freescale?

[gad get @ Jun 12th 2008 8:29PM]

The perfect way to bounce back from slumping sales: cut back on research!

[telepheedian @ Jun 12th 2008 8:58PM]

Even then, despite the fact that the razr was an iconic phone, spec-wise, it was essentially a thinner repackage of the v600. Same os, heck, even some of the same drivers.

[jeb @ Jun 12th 2008 9:47PM]

the irony is, that when motorola did innovate at last with the z8 and its hi def, kick sliding tech, it was the most buggy piece of shit every sold. They stopped selling it the uk in a lot of store after only 5 it was that greater phone. I had 16 different major problems with mine - guess what -"better" firmware never came till everyone hated it and it had died a death.

luckily o2 said to me (and this wasnt them talking advantage, rather a member of staff i know offering me a way out because o2 wouldnt do shit about me having a phone that didnt even work properly) that if i bought an iphone they would reset my contract. so i sold the motorola and my ipod and that just about covered the price and i ended up with a pretty nice phone.

[Erasure25 @ Jun 13th 2008 5:31PM]

Ain't that the truth. I feel sorry for all of my friends who got RAZRs and found out the hard way how much they suck compared to LG or other phones.

[BobfromVegas @ Jun 12th 2008 7:26PM]

Seriously. Have they made anything worth looking at recently?

[David @ Jun 12th 2008 7:28PM]

Not in profile!

HA!

[omelfata @ Jun 12th 2008 7:41PM]

Is Motorola still in the market? with all this iPhone, Nokia, HTC, Sony Ericsson news Motorola seems to just fade....

[gad get @ Jun 12th 2008 8:31PM]

Let's not forget RIM, Samsung, LG...

[deyanimay @ Jun 12th 2008 9:03PM]

palm, hp somewhat

[Beni @ Jun 12th 2008 7:34PM]

Whats wrong with you guys? Regardless of what they do regarding Motorola, how could you not feel sorry for those who lost their jobs? Sucks to be them. I don't know what I'd do if I just suddenly lost my job.

[waiownsyou @ Jun 12th 2008 7:36PM]

I would assume you find a new one. Maybe at McDonald's. Let's just hope they don't make a McRAZR v3i

[bolezhinkov @ Jun 12th 2008 7:43PM]

man I can't wait for a mcphones to come out - new happy meal toy!

[iEye @ Jun 12th 2008 9:40PM]

Ha Ha!,

Well Motorola knows what is next on the drawing board...

RAZR 3!

oh boo hoo, so a few pointdexters have to look for new jobs...

[jeb @ Jun 12th 2008 9:52PM]

absolutely but thats not the point. Motorola has made a pretty terrible decision in getting rid of probably the only thing that could help them out due to arrogance and greed. I bought one of their crappy innovative phones this time last year which was buggy, poorly designed and badly executed, and had nothing but problems with it, so i dont feel much sympathy for the company itself.

if they want to ridicule customers with 20 versions of one dated phone, then they are going to get a backlash sooner or later

[Sean @ Jun 12th 2008 7:36PM]

makes sense.. they can just outsource their R&D to apple and htc.

[TareX @ Jun 12th 2008 8:08PM]

It's strange though because they're supposed to cough out an Android phone running TAT Cascades UI in early 2009. Not that I'm looking forward to it....

HTC Dream is still my #1.

[fourthletter @ Jun 13th 2008 4:43AM]

Yes Sean apple is famous for designing other peoples products, I'm sure they can outsource all the technical stuff to Intel or Foxcomm.

Motorola is a fast slide to nowhere, cutting cost from the department that is going to design your next phones is not a good idea.

[Johan S @ Jun 12th 2008 7:37PM]

They made the RAZR and then sat on their laurels.

It's too bad engineers have to suffer because of bad decisions higher up.

[jim termeer @ Jun 12th 2008 7:46PM]

Killing off basic R&D is one of the first indicators of bad times ahead. Simply means they will be incapable of any strategic innovation.

[Sly Fox @ Jun 12th 2008 7:51PM]

pfff, about time. why research into more crappy phones to sell for boost mobile and tracfone.

[Fernando @ Jun 12th 2008 7:58PM]

Great, now they would be able to push out skarven, nor ZN5

and you jackasses are still celebrating

[TareX @ Jun 12th 2008 8:05PM]

But they've done such a good job with ground-breaking earth-shattering age-defining motorola phone designs.
.
.
.
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they saw it coming. Sorry for their families. I hope they didn't invest in Motorola stocks. They'll be fine though, the Phone industry is an ever-growing business, right?

[Anthony @ Jun 12th 2008 8:21PM]

You know Moto make some crummy phones, but I love my S9 headset. I just wish they'd release the S9-HD. I'm thinking I should stock up on S9s before Moto go the way of... well most US companies.

[gad get @ Jun 12th 2008 8:33PM]

"Most U.S. companies" seems like rather a gloomy outlook.

[gabe @ Jun 12th 2008 8:22PM]

if only Americans were still stubborn about having flip phones MOTO would still be leeching off their old school designs.

How about that classic OS that never changes!

Good old American company - resilient to the end!

[Striker @ Jun 12th 2008 9:44PM]

Have you used a recent version of the Moto Synergy or MOTOMAGX OS? They are highly refined, leaned up, and beautiful. My RAZR V3xx is the fastest phone I have ever used, faster than the iPhone or any other flip or smartphone, the design is enhanced and sturdied up, and it even has 3G. I got it two years after it was released, and it is better than any new phone I have used. Simply put, the RAZR V3xx is a remarkable feat of engineering, even though it is a RAZR, and it even has a nVidia GeForce GPU.

Here comes the flurry of downvites because I said my RAZR is a great phone, it seems as if someone can't have an opinion anymore without being downvoted on Engadget.

[therealmusashi @ Jun 13th 2008 11:44AM]

@ Striker - right on! I had that phone and loved it. Totally solid, and capable of nearly everything I threw at it.

[Simon @ Jun 12th 2008 8:31PM]

Someone needs to kick their design department in the crotch (and i volunteer) , they seriously need new designs. Mooching off variants of the V3 RAZR is pretty lame...take the SE or Nokia approach ffs.

[gad get @ Jun 12th 2008 8:35PM]

What's "ffs"?

[Sly Fox @ Jun 12th 2008 8:36PM]

for F***s sake

[gad get @ Jun 12th 2008 8:38PM]

I assume that was a response to my question and not just a way of voicing displeasure with Motorola's decision. ;)

[Sly Fox @ Jun 12th 2008 8:40PM]

ya

[gei @ Jun 12th 2008 9:02PM]

The Q was quite groundbreaking... no one seems to remember that Motorola was once a small part of this booming smartphone market. It was (and perhaps even still is) one of the thinnest smartphones.

It served me quite well for many years... I was looking forward to replacing it with a Q9... but they were incredibly unimpressive and I ended up joining the HTC camp.

[Sly Fox @ Jun 12th 2008 9:19PM]

um....how about no the Q was released at about the same time as the blackjack which was much thinner had gobs more ram and had a screen that actually went to the edge of the device.

[Shoot me messenger @ Jun 12th 2008 11:52PM]

This is so typical, shoot the ones who actually innovate instead of the managers who propagate shitty decisions throughout. Some heads need to roll, but I guarantee it's not the R and D team, they need them now more than ever.

[fourthletter @ Jun 13th 2008 4:46AM]

To para-phrase Michael Dell, someone should just sell up the company and give the shareholders their money back.
All the new phones coming out of motorola look like shit. The RAZR was nice but had a late 90s UI, Pity them not !

[therealmusashi @ Jun 13th 2008 11:47AM]

Michael Dell said the same thing about Apple in 98 or 99 when Jobs came back and started work on revamping their product line.

[Asten @ Jun 13th 2008 10:42AM]

Okay, these people aren't the people designing phones, and they're certainly not making business decisions. They're technology R&D people.

This is an unfitting end to an organization that's responsible for major technological advancements in its long history.

[therealmusashi @ Jun 13th 2008 11:47AM]

They're not done, they do a lot more than just phones.

[davec @ Jun 13th 2008 5:21PM]

Motorola...that's a good one...know any other good jokes?