Motorola exiting handset biz?!?

Anyone here have any insight into this?

Well, IBM sold off their ThinkPad unit, so it’s definitely a possibility.

The handset unit is definitely a very different unit from the rest of Motorola. Separating them might make strategic sense.

I wouldn’t necessarily think that this would mean eliminating the Motorola brand from their handsets… There’s a lot of positive equity there.

How Nokia is so huge and I never see anyone with one? I see a lot of LG, Sony Ericsson and Samsung. Do I just hang with the out-crowd?

I believe Nokia is much bigger throughout Europe… it certainly seems that most Europeans you observe casually on the street use Nokia.

Ya, I would equate Nokia to Soccer in N/A. A huge number of people play in N/A but it is still the “rest of the world’s sport”.

It would be a great idea - the mobile phone division is the only part of Motorola that isn’t making money.

For that specific reason it isn’t going to happen - at least not for a long time.

Nokia was shut out of the North American market by the carriers a few years ago. They didn’t appreciate Nokia’s “take it or leave it” policies (refusal to co-brand, apply carrier-specific UI’s etc.) They’re popular in “unlocked” markets where consumers have the power to choose their phone independantly of carrier.

I always end up choosing nokias for a prepaid or loaner phones.

nokia still has some of the most reliable and best UI in the biz, IMHO. unfortunately, for the most part they are stuck at the commodity end of the spectrum, free phones with contract, etc. and nothing s3xy.

if nokia had a nice, thin, full featured candybar phone, i’d snap it up in a second. instead, i got a samsung X828, still one of of (if not THE) thinest phone on the market today. I always do wonder why more dont do thin…

FYI, didja know (sure you most know, but), Nokia started as a tire company, and still makes tires? I got nokia tires on my Biomega bike!

R

Do they have wheels for Huffy’s?

Ya, I think I saw Nokia’s on my Daughter’s Disney Princess Themed Huffy :laughing:

Ditto on how thin that phone is. I have the same model (in silver) and love it. A friend has a SLVR and the Samsung is noticeably thinner. Every time Moto comes out with a phone, Samsung seems to one-up them somehow.

Nokia started as a tire company

They’re Nokian in the tire company and they aren’t affiliated anymore. They make sweet studded bicycle tires (manufactured in Finland by Suomi) makes my winter commute much easier on icy roads.

http://www.suomityres.com/winter.html

As for phones, I’ve been wanting to get away from Motorola for a while, this is just the news I’ve been waiting for to jump ship.

Plus the US telco market is very fragmented with a lot of different antenna technologies, and redesigning phones is a time consuming and expensive proposition.

Maybe this will change with the way Apple seem to have shaken up the US carrier market - but then again, probably not.

I think poor design decision (or really overdesign) has had a lot to do with Moto’s fall from grace. They had a massive success with the original RAZR, and pumped it for all it was worth. But didn’t have a new hero to fill the void when volumes of the RAZR exploded and the price collapsed. Complete opposite strategy to Apple who have managed to maintain momentum in the iPod.

Remember, this is just one analyst pondering the future… Motorola’s not going to do anything until a new CEO is in place.

Motorola’s next-big-thing is already on the roadmap - so the phones aren’t going anywhere. Just a matter of waiting to see. :laughing:

My dad has a couple of Motorola radios. They started in the auto business too. Not with tyres, but with the first car radios. Hence the name.

There was a good article in Harvard Business Review about product strategy and it mentioned the iPod. Apple is apparently repeating the same strategy in phones now. To sum up, hit the market with a high end product, differentiate down, but keep updating your high end. As mentioned, Motorola has let the Razr slide without updating or replacing their high end.

Hey CG…as I recall you are ex-Moto.

You see a lot of people here, and especially on the Gizmodo post bitching about the Moto UI.

Having been down the handset road, the carriers shoulder a huge chunk of the “blame” for the compromised operating systems/interfaces. With Apple changing the rules…does this give Moto and Nokia a fighting chance to actually develop the operating systems they want to?

The biggest problem has to do with the fact that Apple already had a killer software team and foundation under its belt - as well as the brand name which attracts a huge portion of loyal customers on its own.

Apple was able to focus it’s UI efforts on a single device - whereas Moto has to focus on proprietary software for its regular phones or Windows Mobile for it’s smart phones.

With that said I work for Motorola and I still have an iPhone. :open_mouth:

I just can’t believe that Moto doesn’t have a killer software team with a vault of UI concepts that could “revolutionize the industry”. From everything I have seen of that industry, it is run by Clueless marketing teams that shotgun the market with garbage. Combine that with the carriers that want to have their thumbprint all over the phone making it a design-by-committee cluster fcuk.

Apple came in and told AT&T to shove their branding and sign-off on all things design authority up their a$$ and created a product the way it should be.

I don’t think that it is that Moto (or anyone else for that matter) COULDN"T have done this…they simply chose not to piss off the carriers, who in the pre-iPhone days held virtually all of the power.

As was already mentioned in this thread (by you as I recall) Nokia got kicked in the nads for this kind of attitude.