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Zander: Motorola passed on NAVTEQ buy
Say you're the CEO of Motorola -- a company that's fallen on hard times as of late, aiming for a rebound -- and you're looking to take a little dig at the world's largest cellphone manufacturer. Where do you begin? In this case, Nokia's purchase of NAVTEQ has fallen into your lap like a gift from the gods, giving you a chance to pan the "stunning" $8.1 billion sale price and casually drop the knowledge that Motorola had previously considered and passed on a bid. There's no telling where the fact ends and the fiction begins here, but at a recent talk to students of the University of Chicago's business school, Zander said that Motorola looked at scooping up NAVTEQ and concluded that it really didn't want to get into the applications biz for fear that it'd upset carriers -- a fear Nokia is challenging head on with both the acquisition and its Ovi initiative. Oh no you didn't, Ed! That's like Nokia dissing the iPhone's lack of 3G... oh, wait.
Motorola set to unveil video-optimized handset
Speaking at this week's Software 2007 gathering in California, Motorola CEO Ed Zander took a break from his company's woes and struggles to share the news that Moto's got a rather exciting new phone waiting in the wings. Details were slim -- the phone was apparently just mentioned in passing as part of the speech -- but the as-yet-unnamed handset is said to be video-centric, capable of a solid 30 frames per second for enjoying movies via SD card. Like other hot Motorolas in recent memory, Zander indicated that it'd be slated for a European release when it's officially announced next week. Any guess as to what the four-letter MOTONAME for this one might be?
Motorola to lay off 3,500
Could the unprecedented wave of RAZR popularity finally be drawing to a close? Probably not -- CEO Ed Zander says Moto sold more of them this past quarter than ever before -- but that isn't stopping the world's number two manufacturer from tighting the belt a notch and cleaning up shop. On account of some lackluster performance to close out '06, the company looks to drop about 3,500 folks from its payroll (a full 5 percent of its workforce) but has no plans to change its overall product strategy. In fact, perhaps due in part to the layoffs, it looks to post full-year revenues of $46 billion or more, above analyst estimates. In other words: expect more RAZRs and RAZR-alikes. As long as they follow the V6 MAXX theme, though, that may not be an entirely bad thing.
Live from Gary Shapiro's and Ed Zander's CES keynote
Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association, and Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola, are doing the honors for this morning's keynote address to CES attendees.8:41AM PST - The keynote has kicked off with a video detailing the forty years since the first CES.8:43AM - Gary Shapiro takes the stage.8:45AM - CES is about "New Convergence" this year: convergence of content, services, and products.
