Motorola gives birth to twins

Today marks the day when Motorola officially splits into two independent companies: Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions. Personally, I worked with Motorola in its research team during my internship way back in 2007. As a company, I have always admired it but deep inside me felt during my short tenure of 6 months that there was something wrong. After Moto Razr, none of the mobile phones did well and it lost the battle to smartphone such as iPhone.

I have always admired Motorola for its innovation. They were the pioneers of mobile technology. I remember the classic case study during my graduate studies: the classic case of failure of brick-size Motorola phones. I feel Motorola failed to learn from its mistakes. Constant innovation is the only change that every technology company has to embrace in order to stay in the market. Todays market is only for the fittest but the fit does not sustain for long. So keep innovating.

Coming back to the split, here are the key take-aways:

• Motorola shareholders of record on Dec. 21 will receive one share of Mobility for every eight shares of Motorola Inc. they already held. Motorola Inc. shares will then go through a 1-for-7 reverse split and become Motorola Solutions shares.
• Motorola is also selling off a division that makes network equipment for cell phone companies to Nokia Siemens Networks.
• After the split, Motorola Mobility had $2.9 billion in sales in the most recent quarter, compared with $1.9 billion for the Motorola Solutions segments. However, the $321 million in operating earnings at Solutions was stronger than the $3 million that Mobility made.
• Solutions will continue to be based in Schaumburg, I’ll., while Mobility will take up a temporary home in nearby Libertyville, Ill. Motorola officials have said that it may later move its headquarters team to San Diego, the San Francisco area or Austin, Texas.

I wish both the babies a very happy birthday and we will try to revisit them again on their birthdays to see their growth.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/01/03/financial/f122752S81.DTL

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