Motorola pauses split to mull options
By Chris Ziegler 
posted January 14th 2010 6:13PM
posted January 14th 2010 6:13PM
Amazing what a little success will do to a company, isn't it? The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Motorola has put the brakes on its search for a buyer for its Home and Networks Mobility division that's responsible for the company's set-top boxes and network infrastructure equipment. It's easy to see why this might be a good time for Moto to pause and take stock of its situation -- while no one's even close to calling the Mobile Devices division's turnaround complete, the focus on Android appears to have injected fresh interest (and commercial success) in a lineup plagued with countless duds just a year ago. Apparently the company is also discouraged by the fact that suitors have lowballed Motorola's expected sale price by a billion or two, but make no mistake, the split isn't off altogether -- the executive board is expected to convene in the next few days to figure this all out before the next round of bidding is due in February. Stay tuned -- by the end of the year, we could realistically be looking at one, two, or even three Motos depending on how this goes down.
Make a razr phone with android already :D
@matthewg556 : Dang..I hadn't even thought of that. Heck, thats actually brilliant. A really nice Android flip would probably sell like wild at the mid-to-low end. I hate to say it being an old Nokia fan, but Android seems poised to become the new Symbian, minus all the problems.
@psycros
Just one slight problem. It will be hard to put touch on a flip phone and Android is designed for touch.
@naashak A good part of the OS is usable without touch... A very cheap android phone with qvga, non touch screen and a limited selection of compatible apps is maybe in the pipes...
@matthewg556
they could call it the gazr hahaha
@blazinsmokey
or geezr
-jp
@matthewg556 y with a flip phone it would be horrible to use it for games or media or web browsing, rather make a droid without a keyboard to make it smaller and thinner and make it pink and what ever else colors you want. imo flip phones use to be good before touch screen was out now they are something that cheap phones come with
Would be cool to see them become the tight, high-quality Motorola of old again.
Was trying to comment on this story about 15 minutes ago but my Motorola cable modem crapped out.
Android on Motorola's set top boxes please! I'm sick of my current moto cable box/dvr..the menus are slow..buttons presses sometimes take more than a second to register, sometimes it freezes for like 10 seconds and then does all the button presses u had pressed in that time...
i dunno how it passed quality control...
@piopio
That sounds like my Scientific Atlanta HD cable box with Cablevision.
Honestly I think a good part of those slowdowns can also be attributed with the cable provider.
Finally, a sensible decision. Motorola has been selling off far more profitable divisions (and retrenching employees in them) for years to support Mobile devices...
nice to see a smiley Motorola icon :-) feels positive, ! keep up the good work dear Moto!
@satish
looks like Queen Amidallah
droid does... save motorola
Put some Android love in my set-top box why dont ya.
Androids cool, sure, but really doesn't have have an amazing phone to go along with it simply because the Droid isn't perfect (bad keyboard) and the Nexus One cant keep a 3G signal. But good for Motorola.
Why are they so dependent on Android it will only take them so far; Its not like the phones can differ that much unless they decide to cripple features on certain models.
Nothing really changes besides the look of the OS, and the hardware+look of the phone.
@Xoy Yeah I agree. Android's not going to be their saving grace. They've been doing some things right, some things a lot better, but they need to do more things right for longer. Bring Ghz processor-powered smartphones, really figure out what MotoBlur should be or just get rid of it, bring a decent lower-tier smartphone but focus on quality within a budget rather than some gimmicky form factor like Backflip. And so on
Probably Nexus TWO
http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r267/antony3322/Nexus2.jpg
of course DROID 2
Great job Moto you guys make a great phone in the Droid, keep up the good work.
Way to go Moto, delay vital company business to take time to pat yourselves on the back for DROID. Heck, you did the same thing with Micro-Tac (and made a corporate movie about the debacle), the Star-Tac (and were late to the digital dance), and the RAZR (while the corporation collapsed around your party). Well, at least someday soon, you'll be able to license the batwing logo to every crapgadget supplier imaginable; seems to be working for Polaroid.