Motorola: chronicle of a death foretold
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.
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?