We won't say that Motorola's on the up and up, but just after ridding itself of that pending litigation between it and Carl Icahn comes word that a fresh face will be succeeding Ed Zander as non-executive Chairman of the Board. David Dorman, former chairman and CEO of AT&T, has been selected by Moto's Board of Directors to take over Zander's chairman seat after he retires on May 5th. According to Greg Brown, president and CEO of the company, he feels that Dorman is "ideally suited to serve as Motorola's chairman," and he made known his excitement about working with Dave as it "moves forward with its plan to create two independent publicly traded companies and improve the performance of the Mobile Devices business." Good luck in there, Mr. Dorman.

[Image courtesy of USA Today]

Good news coming from the Motorola camp? Say it ain't so! The long-standing feud between the flagging company and investor Carl Icahn has finally come to an end, and lo and behold, the pending litigation between the two has even been dismissed. Apparently the two parties managed to agree that (effective immediately) Keith Meister, a managing director of the Icahn investment funds and principal executive officer of Icahn Enterprises would be "appointed to serve on the [firm's board of directors]," and William R. Hambrecht, founder, chairman and CEO of WR Hambrecht + Co. and co-founder of Hambrecht & Quist, would be "nominated for election" during the 2008 annual shareholders meeting. Heck, Moto's even soliciting Mr. Icahn's input in dealing with the hopeful separation of businesses -- but then again, it would probably take advice from just about anyone given the current state of affairs.

During the first episode of the new season of Criminal Minds, FBI agent and resident neat-freak David Rossi just couldn't shake the unsolved double homicide that he never could close a score ago. Oddly enough, that wasn't the only mystery involved, as we're still scratching our heads trying to figure out what's so important on the lid of Mr. Rossi's RAZR2. Maybe a super-secret 4G icon? Tommy Tutone's most favorite dame's number? The infamous Sad Moto face? Whatever it was, we're fairly certain a highly concealed RAZR2 is superior to the lowly RAZR Derek Morgan is still getting issued. What's a man got to do to get a leg-up, anyway?

The tough times just don't seem to end at Motorola -- the company announced today that it's laying off another 2,600 workers, for a total of 10,000 positions eliminated since the start of 2007. That's on top of the various high-level executive departures that have been taken place lately, not to mention the company's plan to split off its mobile phone business, which will undoubtedly lead to more cuts down the line. The goal is to reduce costs by some $500M by the end of the year, and some of the jobs being lost come as Moto closes a factory in Singapore and a WiMAX development lab in Florida. There's no word on when the cuts are going to come, but here's hoping all these aggressive steps lead to a little vacation for Sad Moto here.

Just in case you missed it, the Verizon XV6900, Motorola Q9c, and LG enV(2) are all finally launched on Verizon. Head on over to Engadget Mobile for the full details.

It's not every day that we hear about a Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard device that lacks any cellular hardware whatsoever, so when we do, it's sort of like winning the lottery except way less exciting and profitable. Enter the first volley of devices to support Motorola's new Total Enterprise Access & Mobility initiative -- TEAM, conveniently -- which represent just the very front end of a whole infrastructure solution for business campuses looking to replace their desk phones with something just a little more mobile and modern. Eventually, TEAM will support true VoIP-cellular handoff, but in its initial form, it'll be WiFi only, making these first handsets very unique indeed. We don't have the complete picture on specs here, but they'll support push-to-talk, text messaging, and as we mentioned, they'll be loaded with the very latest and greatest that Windows Mobile have to offer when they launch later this year.

[Via PC World]

Merely days after Stu Reed racked up as he waltzed out of Motorola's doors for the final time, and nary a fortnight after the same firm's chief marketing officer did the same, along comes word that two more bigwigs have now left the building. Effective immediately, Larry R. Raymond has replaced Steve Strobel as treasurer, while Stephen Nolan "is taking over as the head of mobile devices in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)" -- a position that was held by Mike Fenger just last week. According to a company spokeswoman, the "leadership changes are part of an overall plan to swiftly transform the senior executive team." Hey, if it's lookin' for turnover, it's certainly doing something right. [Warning: Read link requires subscription]

[Via PhoneScoop]

Is that an exodus we smell, or what? Nary 24 hours after Motorola's chief marketing officer decided to start his weekend early by parting ways with the company, along comes word that the (now-former) president of Motorola's Mobile Devices business is doing the same. According to a breaking release from Moto, Stu Reed's departure is "effective immediately," and Greg Brown, company president and CEO, made mention that the outfit "appreciates [his] many contributions and wishes him the best in the future." As of now, there's no word on who's lined up fill Mr. Reed's shoes, but it seems the pool of choices could be dwindling.

Right around a month ago, we heard that Angstrom Power had managed to stuff some of its sophisticated hydrogen fuel cells into a MOTOSLVR L7. That prototype, friends, is what you see about. Unfortunately, we're no closer to realizing when this stuff will actually escape the proverbial beta stage, and for whatever it's worth, we're also no closer to feeling absolutely safe with one of these next to our melon (though existing alternatives don't have the greatest track record either).

Okay, we suppose cellphone companies trumpeting some sort of fuel cell technology isn't that weird, but nevertheless, Moto sure seems proud of its most recent advancements. Showcased at this year's Mobile World Congress are a number of "alternative power solutions including fuel cell and reflow batteries," which can be deployed in most every wireless / mobile environment out there. More specifically, the outfit is demonstrating a fuel cell-powered WiMAX base station, and it's also suggesting that said technology could "further guarantee [the] availability of uninterrupted power" in TETRA radio networks that are used in public safety environments. Fascinating, no?

There's not too many deets on this just yet, but apparently, UK's CSR is getting set to showcase a technology known as eGPS (enhanced Global Positioning System, if you couldn't guess) at Mobile World Congress 2008. According to the firm, it delivers a "universal positioning capability that will not only work reliably indoors and in zero GPS signal conditions, but greatly speed time to fix in poor GPS reception areas where most handsets are used." More specifically, it can "exploit data available from the cellular network to speed GPS fixes and provide complementary, fast, and reliable location sensing when GPS signals are weak or unavailable." Best of all, the firm is hoping to add eGPS capabilities to handsets for under $1 per unit, and it's also using the stage in Barcelona to trumpet a single-chip GPS receiver with embedded Bluetooth and FM radio. Unfortunately, mum's the word on when this stuff will actually find its way into mobiles.

[Via NaviGadget]

That alleged leak of Moto's 2008 lineup last year in Amsterdam is looking more and more legit pretty much by the minute. First, we got a glimpse of what appears to be the Skarven -- a phone that'll probably become the Z12 kick slider at retail -- a few days ago, and now an alleged shot of the TEXEL candybar has turned up. As much flak as Motorola has taken recently for yawnfest industrial design, we've gotta say that we're sort of digging what they've thrown together with the TEXEL here (assuming it's real, of course). The striped keypad is vaguely attractive, the display looks plenty big, and we'll always take a few touch sensitive controls to turn up the sexy factor a notch or three. If the originally leaked specs on this one turn out to be accurate, it'll be a ROKR-branded piece with a morphing keypad in the same vein as the E8 and should break cover in the first few months of the year. We're going to cautiously -- nay, very cautiously say that you're headed in the right direction here, Moto.

[Thanks, deuxani]

The Z8 is so 2007, and we're ready for something new to satisfy our insatiable banana phone needs. Technically this form factor is called a "kick slider," yes, we understand that, but who wouldn't rather own and use a banana phone? Anyway, the Z10 is a marvelously attractive phone, owing largely to a tastefully metallic casing that's reminiscent of the platinum V3xx (and we mean that in a complimentary way). Our time with the phone was all too brief, but we got the impression that the Z10's implementation of UIQ -- like the Z8's before it -- is an awesome implementation of Symbian that could easily give S60 a run for its money if only Motorola would take the time and R&D dollars to proliferate these kinds of phones a little bit more than they do. Sadly, the Z10 features HSDPA only on the 2100MHz band, and we got absolutely no impression from Team Moto that there'd be any Americanized version on the way. Lucky you, Europe!

We're awfully disillusioned by the lack of 3G data -- a phone with a display, a keypad, and an overall look this sexy deserves better. Be that as it may, though, anyone who thinks they can plod along happily on EDGE alone owes it to themselves to have a nice, close look at the ROKR E8 when it comes out later this quarter. The landscape QVGA screen was awfully bright and crisp (though the eerie, dim blue lighting plaguing the room could make it seem artificially great), the glossy black shell is pretty gorgeous, and it's hard to deny the cool factor on a mighty morphin' keypad. Complaints? The usual 3G whining aside, we'd have preferred a full circle for music navigation instead of the funky three-quarter thing we have here. Call us fickle!