From Bankruptcy to Billions: The Revival of Motorola

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Motorola is one of the most important companies in history. They are responsible for the mobile phone, among many other inventions, but their success didn't last forever. They took hit after hit. They were left with no profits, bled dry from the inside out by Google and left with none of their technology. Yet, this wasn't the end. Motorola was down, but not out. Somehow after all of this, they did they impossible. Motorola not only survived but began to thrive. This is how.

At their core, Motorola was a wireless communications company, but that's massively underselling their long, prestigious, history. In the second World War, they made a breakthrough invention. The first portable, two-way radio: The SCR-300, which soon became known as the walkie-talkie. It was a pivotal tool for the US Army Corps, and had a range between 10 and 20 miles. But that's just the beginning. Motorola also created, Unified S-Band" radio, a crucial piece of equipment for the Apollo 11 moon landing mission. The radio was responsible for one of the most important video transmissions in human history. Motorola's has a long history beyond these two examples. It's actually unbelievable how big an impact this one company had on humanity.

Yet shockingly, these pivotal examples aren't even what they're known for today. In 1973 Motorola engineer Martin Cooper had just finished his latest prototype. It allowed for remote calling, anywhere. But it was fully handheld, and didn't have cables, and didn't have to be attached to a vehicle, and it wasn't a radio...! Motorola had just invented the mobile phone, but this was just the prototype. It would take Motorola another full decade to bring it to the masses, and over $100 million.

[...] In the early 2000s, they had a fierce rivalry with Nokia, and soon unveiled the Razr 3. A sleek, ultra-thin flip phone, and one of the most iconic and successful phones in history. The Razr 3 sold over 130 million units. Their invention altered the world of technology. Almost everyone living today is directly impacted by this monumental invention. Which is what makes what happened next, so surprising.

[...] Motorola phones had no flash interface like Apple, and very little third party apps. Plus, just by looking at the Motorola Q, you could see why it didn't catch on. Worst of all, it was running Windows as its operating system. The traditional dumb phone" had been most of Motorola's business. But these were falling out of favor. Time was running out. They needed to adapt, and fast.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.