Story 2014-08-28 2RAM Motorola: chronicle of a death foretold

Motorola: chronicle of a death foretold

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in mobile on (#2RAM)
Motorola used to be the powerhouse of mobile telephony. Now they're almost nobody. Their phones represent 2 percent of the global market for smartphones; Motorola Mobility lost $198 million in the first quarter of 2014, and its losses just since Google took over have totaled more than $1 billion, even as the company has cut some 17,000 workers. ChicagoMag asks, "What the heck happened?" It's a hell of a story, and it's not over yet.
The history of many giant corporations (Lehman Brothers, General Motors) shows, great success can lead to great trouble. Interviews with key players in and around Motorola and its spinoffs indicate that the problems began when management jettisoned a powerful corporate culture that had been inculcated over decades. When healthy internal competition degenerated into damaging infighting. "I loved most of my time there," says Mike DiNanno, a former controller of several Motorola divisions, who worked at the company from 1984 to 2003. "But I hated the last few years."
Don't give up on Motorola yet! Their upcoming Moto 2 smartwatch looks phenomenal, and they've got new management and a couple of tricks up their sleeves. This article is a great chronicle of a company's demise, but skip down to the bottom for a glimpse of what's to come, too.
Reply 3 comments

Train wrecks are interesting (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-29 14:29 (#2RPX)

Humans have a morbid fascination for rubbernecking

Tech companies from days past (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-30 16:29 (#2RX0)

The old moto was a force to be reckoned with, now it's just kind of sad. Remember when they were actually a force in the CPU market back in the power-pc days? So goes to tech company circle of life. Let's see who comes next.

Re: Tech companies from days past (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-08-30 20:06 (#2RX3)

Who's to say - with the right leadership and a bright idea they may even come back. Their Razr phone was the must-have flipphone before iphones changed the market. They're still kind of a nice phone, actually. It's getting tougher to bounce back, but it's not impossible.

I find it hard to believe the huge candybar formfactor smartphones and the sheet of icons you flip and slide are going to be here for ever. There's got to be something better out there, and someone is going to have to discover/invent/impose it. I'd be happy if it were someone other than Apple just because I'm bored with the status quo. Blackberry seems to be out of ju-ju. So, who's going to be the next nuclear bomb in the market place?