Motorola’s phone division is now a lone wolf
March 26, 2008 by Jayvee Fernandez
Filed under Mobile Monitor, Motorola
We’ve seen the mergers: BenQ-Siemens, Sony Ericsson, and even Symbian being mostly owned by Nokia. But how often do you see a company splitting up? Well, by 2009 the complete split up of Motorola as a phone company and as a wireless hardware manufacturer will take place.
Does Motorola make great phones? Yes they do. But the split seems to come from a lack of commitment on a single operating system, reports Bill Ray of The Register. I do agree: The Motorola Q uses Windows Mobile, the ROKR and A1200 Ming series use a form of Linux. Their other “mid range luxury” phones like the RAZR and KRZR use a dumbed down version of their own OS. In the beginning as well, the ROKR was a little confused about its platform of music support – at first supporting iTunes and then moving on to a proprietary player.
So what is the future of Motorola? I always thought that spreading oneself and adopting what’s already out there would usually be a safe move. Look at the Treo that adopted the Windows Mobile platform? It’s selling. So why is Motorola getting canned out of their own company?
The lack of focus comes mainly from what Motorola’s overall vision seems to be. At one point they were all about fashion with the RAZR. Now they are all about music. At some point they were into enterprise with the Ming and the Q. I highly doubt Motorola is similar to Nokia — the Finn company that can launch small iterations of the former model every week. They have the cash for that. Motorola should really start thinking about what they really want to do. IMHO – it should be music, because the ROKR already has a steady following because of its seriously good sound quality.
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