Motorola to layoff 3,000 employees, most of 'em in handset division
By Darren Murph 
posted November 2nd 2008 7:20AM
posted November 2nd 2008 7:20AM
To be honest, we were surprised that we didn't hear this number along with the other doom and gloom professed during Motorola's Q3 earnings call, but the writing was very clearly on the wall. As part of the mentioned $800 million expenditure cut planned for 2009, 3,000 (more) of Moto's employees will be looking for work elsewhere. According to an unnamed spokeswoman, a "little over two-thirds of those layoffs [will be] in the handset division." And just think -- if Moto would only use all those hands to get an Android-powered phone out before "entirely too long from now," maybe these cuts wouldn't even be necessary. Maybe.
where is the sad logo?
Okay, you convinced me.
The sad moto logo has been used so many times, yet it's so full of win every time.
Its a sad story. They used to make such a sturdy phone.
Well, its a must rather than going the SIEMENS way of giving their phone division to Taiwanese company, just to make the new owner realise that they are so inefficient and close them down much later.
I remember reading somewhere that Morotora is a 3rd generation family owned company (well, majority of the share), and during crisis somewhere in year 2003, the grandson of the company changed his working habit, going to office from once a week to 3x a week and boast his changing work habit to Fortune or Businessweek (i forgot which one).
And the company is also so much scrutinised for being out of touch with the technology that their CEO is soo old and dont even know how to text sms.
They'd better start rejuvenating the top position of the company like Intel did and get close to their target customer.
By all this amount of layoffs, the company should be shut down by now! That is really too much. This is like the 5th or 6th layoff phase!
So...they're gonna buy Palm?
layoff should happen in directors and senior official .cos they are the one who destroyed motorola......
their stupid guidance forced employees to make crappy handsets and to ignore what the consumers want
*Nods sagely*
Yes, in an ideal world the top is where MOTO FAIL should have started to chop off, at least they have a soft landing with those golden parachutes...
Those morons are the ones who gave the orders to make RAZR clone after RAZR clone.... even when they saw the immenent release of the best and most revolutionary phone... the iPhone >
KRZR K1
PEBL U6
RAZR V3
FONE F3
RAZR V3t
RAZR V3xx
RAZR²
RIZR Z3
ROKR
ZINE
W370....
To top it off, the head honcho gets a ~$100 mil bonus if he spins off handsets into its own company, ~$30 mil if he doesn't.
Here's a novel idea: $100 mil if he does, 0 if he doesn't. That's a much better incentive to make handsets profitable.
Meh!
Motorolla should have been out of business a long time ago. The only reason they were in business was because of the phone sales in the U.S. Maybe the RAZR caused an impact, but that was it really.
These layoff phases clearly indicated that the company's handset division is NOT doing a good job.
I sympathise for the employees, but not for the company.
You can't separate by saying you sympathize for the company but not the employees. The employees need the company. If you want to dole out the blame, give it to the executives. The company is neither evil nor good. It's just a company.
I don't know, man, they make a pretty bitchin' modem. Than being said, it's the only one I've ever used.
As a former "motorolan", it's very sad to hear these news again. When I left, they were about to do the same to the networks division (where I used to work) and now this is happening all over again with the handsets... what's next?
The Walkie Talkie division?
oh wait
Motorola failed for a clear reason: SOFTWARE. It was the worst.
The RAZR clones surprisingly didn't help. Their adoption of Android is way too late.
Bye Bye Moto
Hello Rento.
Hello Moto~
Moto made their bed, there is nothing more to be said. I don't get depressed when GM lays off thousands either, because the simple fact is that these companies took what was once a dominating lead and destroyed it, continually, over the course of several years without so much as a second thought. I only feel bad for the families of the likely talented and hardworking employees who might face hard times because of poor corporate decisions. Hopefully the remaining staff will be able to adapt to the new dynamic and maintain enough good morale to produce a nice Android phone.
What? you dont want to pay $20,000+ for a Cavalier (oops typo: cobalt) and its superior fit & finish quality over a $16,000 Honda civic... who'da thunk it!
Try doing a little research before you shoot your mouth off.
Chevrolet Cavalier Coupe - $16,330 less $1,500 current offer = $14,830
Honda Civic DX Coupe - $15,205
Feel bad for yourself, your children and grandchildren too, because yours and their tax dollars will be given to those GREEDY FUXs that have made bad corporate decisions for the next 20 years at least!! Wonder when the next 700 billion dollar request will come?
@ Sad_Penguin...
Um, the cavalier has been discontinued... I was refering to the COBALT as a cavalier to point out the legendary crappyness of GM...
good luck getting any $$$ back for your GM car after 3 years...
either way you take it I'll still run you off the road in your cobalt/civic with my Buick GN... (yes I know GM)
Well obviously I meant the Cobalt and I fail for saying Cavalier but apparently I said so because you brought it up. The point is, it doesn't cost $20,000 and it is not anywhere near as bad a car as you say.
GM is kind of a different thing from Motorola. Foreign automakers have been gaining ground on American automakers since the energy crisis in the early 70s.While the Japanese, for example, just made more and more improvements, GM still clunked along kind of oblivious. Americans still bought GM's gas-guzzling unreliable cars for years, so GM didn't improve. Now with the second energy crisis, people decided to tell GM to fuck off. HOWEVER, in the last 2-3 years GM has dramatically increased the quality of their cars, and have also finally started to manufacture some really attractive models. I think they very possibly did that too late, though. I feel really bad for almost everyone at GM because I know that not a single person that was responsible for GMs decline will suffer...
Motorola's decline however was really fast. Motorola's handset division used to be pretty good... StarTac, the V60 series, the v300 series (which I always was jealous of because they were some of the first quad-band phones with bluetooth), and then the RAZR... then I don't know wtf happened. They basically went from inventing new designs to seeing how many different RAZR clones they could make. Once again, no one is gonna suffer that was responsible for Moto's decline...
General Motors has improved the reliability of their cars many years ago. I have owned many and I can say that since my 1993 Lumina I have had very good luck with General Motors. That car managed over 300,000 miles before it was 'retired' by it's then current owner last year. So you can't give me that "GM sucks" bullshit. It isn't true.
Yes, Civic is probably a more reliable car than Cobalt, but that isn't all General Motors builds and many GM models beat Honda where it matters, in long term reliability. Not only that, even Chevrolet beats Scion (Toyota) in long term reliability as a brand.
http://www.jdpower.com/corporate/news/releases/pressrelease.aspx?ID=2008115
Scion. Beaten by Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge and completely trounced by Mercury, Cadillac, Buick, Lincoln and Ford.
Stop the hate. It's old.
One more thing. I hardly call 30+ MPG "gas guzzling". If smartly driven, almost every car GM builds does over 30 MPG on the highway and can average over 25 MPG. I know because I have experienced it myself.
As somebody who has to work with their cell phones on a daily basis (working as a software tester for a cellular provider).
I can only hope that this will drive them to finally make better products. I, and my fellow colleagues have suffered enough.
And BTW, I do agree they should have started to fire people from the top.
no matter how much i hate moto these days, i still hv a sweet spot for them in my heart. lets just hope that the new Android handset helps this legendary company, now fighting for survival
I feel for those Motorola guys, my company is talking layoffs too. This is typical crap, the grunts get the boot while the big shots get the golden parachutes.
Hey, my company is also talking layoffs as early as this Wednesday. I think this is terrible. They can pay the execs millions and instead of cutting their salary they lay people off. I guess if you rule the world you make the decisions.
Best wishes to both you guys... I hope that you're not forced to suffer because of some disconnected exec making shitty decisions.
Apple, RIM and Microsoft were poaching Moto employees for the past 6 or so months. Smart people are already gone. Now RIM is out in NC to poach Sony Ericsson employees.
Actually RIM set up shop near Schaumburg too. Started poaching folks from Libertyville late last year.
if you read the ceo's msg, you'd figure out that the layoff was huge because (a) they chopped off symbian and motomagx (b) they are retreating from certain markets/customers. if macdonalds decided to only sell salads and not burgers, the burger flippers would be laid off too. or if macdonalds decided not to sell in india anymore, lotsa ppl will lose their jobs there too.
dont let your imagination should never goto bed with your need to make others look worse. it does make sense actually.
Well, don't forget that consumers are part responsible for this. You all have been eating up the crap that handset companies have been putting out for years... that is why the cellular maket has not matured in the US and Canada. You all want shiny toys for $0 and will buy anthing without research.
If you stop buying rubbish, these brands will not survive.. that goes for all gadgets, and CARS!
Ever since all the higher-up employees were shuffled around, Motorola started to go downhill.
I have to say, the RAZR was probably the best phone I ever owned, but now all I see are a ton of crap RAZR and KRZR-like models.
If they actually made decent products, perhaps this layoff wouldn't be happening. Every Motorola handset I've owned - in Asia and here in the States - have been awful POS products that break and / or malfunction. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has suffered this level of poor product quality from Motorola. And as many other people I know have said, I will NEVER buy a Motorola handset ever again.
Am I the only one who wonders why a company like Motorola doesn't take the initiative and focus on building a team of the best user interface and human-computer interaction experts in the world? With the enormous resources all of these cellphone companies have, why can't they seem to get the right people for the job and actually be able to compete with or even surpass Apple in terms of smartphone interface simplicity, usability, and intuitiveness?? Companies like Motorola, HTC, Sony Ericcson all have excellent hardware -- they must recognize that their software and UI is the main stumbling block to competing with Apple, Blackberry, etc.
Whats strange is that there are plenty of examples of teams with excellent interface design in the PC/Mac software world and in the web design world, but for some reason this never translates into the mobile phone realm. Yes, HTC's "touchflo" is a start, and both Android and Windows Mobile 7 looks to significantly improve on the status quo and even Blackberry has finally started to put some emphasis into it with their new models, but you would think we would be much farther ahead in this considering it's almost 2009.
I put a large part of the blame on Microsoft, who has seemed to relish living in the past with the pathetic interface they've long neglected on Windows mobile/CE. But Nokia, Samsung, SE, RIM, Palm, and others have long had many other OS choices, and they haven't been a whole lot better than WinMo.
Anyways, love them or hate them, Apple can certainly be praised for waking up all the lazy mobile phone executives who have for too long accepted the "good enough". Hopefully the iPhone has lit the fires under their fat bums!
I keep thinking I'll get tired of that picture, but I never do.
Now they come out with a new handset that sells for $2K. Talk about a waste of resources....