Reinvention is nothing new for Motorola. For the past two summers, I've interned with Motorola Solutions at there facility in Plantation, Florida. My grandfather worked as a security guard there 35+ years ago and now I am there as a software dev. intern. It was strange, on my first day, a senior engineer told us interns that Motorola was in the strange transition from a "hardware company to a software company." There was a lot of talk and general anxiety in the air about where the company was headed. As this post mentioned, the fire and ideas seemed to be nonexistent. My mentor would tell me that it was our job to primarily focus on the radios and release upgrades over long time periods. Nothing was being built or researched, only maintained and slightly tweaked. There was neither passion nor excitement at the company. Towards the end of the internship, the company sold part of the business to Zebra technologies and with it some of the employees. Many physicists and electrical engineers were let go. The factory and learning center was shutdown and the company decided to sell the facility. We currently rent back a small portion.<p>Currently on the premises, there is a small Motorola Mobility office, whilst owned by Lenovo, still has a very Google feel when you look through their glass windows. There have been talks of various healthcare companies and even Magic Leap moving into the other vacant area we used to inhabit.<p>I still have hope in this company. I'm currently into the second internship and the gears are starting to move rapidly. I'm very happy to be working on some projects that I definitely see putting Motorola Solutions ahead of the game in public safety systems. And when I doubt if coming back from such a hit is possible, all I have to do is pull open my cubicle drawer and look at the pile of Motorola M6800's.
Motorolla, Blockbuster, Palm, etc... Every one of these companies "had it all" and "lost it all". When I was younger and heard the term, "If a business isn't growing it's dying" I thought it was stupid. I finally get it.<p>● If a business isn't diversifying its risks and assets it can lose them all. Similar to family trees, too few kids and a single war or natural disaster can wipe out the whole family and permanently end their branch of their family tree.<p>● Don't be afraid to pivot. Nintendo was originally a playing card company. Samsung was originally a trading company. Squaresoft was originally a power line construction company.<p>● Be your own competition. If a new product in the company destroys the old products, that's a good thing. The company still wins. When you are your own competitor weather you win or lose, you still win.
Seems like all the usual downfalls: innovators dilemma (sticking with analog mobile phones too long, being late on smartphones), arrogance based on past successes leading to a massive investment in a product nobody wants (Iridium), too many internal fiefdoms, etc.
Only thing irritating is the constant comparisons to Apple, not just in this article but any article. If a company can't compete with Apple it's suddenly a weak company that the author suggested the employees should quit from to 'join a startup'.<p>This is asinine. Motorola has licensed deals with almost every American and Canadian police/government force. They basically own digital RF encryption. They have a foothold in this industry and it's not close, and they can't be pushed out. If I was an employee in their radio division I could really care less if they are involved in phones are not.<p>It's still a billion dollar company, what are we even saying 'bye' to?
This is somewhat offtopic, but...<p>If you continually have to tell your reader to "Scroll or arrow down to keep reading", something is <i>wrong</i> with the way you are presenting a webpage.<p>No matter how fashionable the techniques you're using are.
Separate to the story, the "audio narration" option here is really cool. I could see this being a great way to increase engagement for certain types of reader/listener (certainly more so than the weird scrolling nonsense some news sites are trying).
Companies are always rising and falling in America. That is a good thing.<p>Its very good to recap and learn from history, but lets not get too sentimental. Corporate failure isn't made of the same stuff as individual failure. Its not like one guy doing really well, then falling on hard times. The people that built the successful company were long gone. Then complacent people took over. Then frightened and unimaginative people followed. Then finally only those that could not find a place anywhere else were left.
Not working in Chrome on OSX. All I can see after choosing audio or no is "Scroll or arrow down to keep reading." and can't scroll down.
Hm... I remeber the Milestone days, they said it will support Flash. They even made lots of advertisment with their flash phone.
However they never officially supported flash.
Also the updates were pretty much delayed and while a author on xda could be way faster on bringing updates + a smoother feeling to the phone a company like motorola couldn't they announced phone by phone instead of focusing on a few and supporting them.
Thats why most companies failed and thats why the iphone is so beloved.
It's supported over a freak amount of time. Okai not every bug gets fixed fast, but that's more an internal issue.
However on android the situation is really really bad. Too much fragmentation, too many companies that don't care about the software just more money.. (which apple of course do aswell but with their update policy they make their customers more happy than most other software vendors)
I didn't know how much I didn't know about Motorola. Crazy rollercoaster. I hope they manage to keep talent and ideas just enough to stay relevant and not become a reminiscing brand name on a tag.
My theory about why these big hardware companies went bust (Motorola, Siemens, Philips, etc):<p>- They never got software development right, they couldn't grow sw development beyond some basic ones for hardware<p>- They never got User Experience right. They never thought it was an issue, or they developed for engineers, not everyday people<p>- They don't think ahead of the curve, they don't treat their customers right (what about the Android upgrades from Motorola that were promised and not delivered)<p>Of course Android was developed outside of them, but they try to stick a "custom experience" there which is crap. They can't even do that <i>one thing</i> right.
Just came in here to say that when I got my girl a Google Play edition Moto G I was jealous of it.
I had a Nexus 4 but the Moto G's camera actually seem to take better pictures. Maybe that says more about the crappy Nexus 4 camera than it does the Moto G's.
The Moto G also felt so much better in my hand.<p>I later when out and bought a Moto X with a broken screen on craigslist and bought a replacement screen on ebay. That is what I am currently using and I happy with it.
I am from India, & I still remember back in 1998, my uncle had a motorola pager <a href="http://goo.gl/Ziuy34" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/Ziuy34</a>.
When i held the pager, it was cute & fun little device.
If we think of communication back in the 90s, I wish the present would be same as the 90s. :)<p>Call the operator;say your message;& wait for the person to call you.
In April 2013 Motorola invited my startup partner and I out to demo our new audio sync across multiple devices technology.<p>They talked about buying us potentially and we were crazy excited...<p><a href="http://ryanspahn.com/my-google-NDA-experience.html" rel="nofollow">http://ryanspahn.com/my-google-NDA-experience.html</a>
Ed Zander and Co dismantled the entire research division (including the main facility near UIUC) in the name of cost savings and lean. Then he helped fund and develop the prototype for the iPhone (in joint effort with Apple). It's a case example of incompetency at the top level.
Doesn't fit very well on firefox on a 1600x900 screen. I had to switch the browser to full screen mode (F11) to be able to see all the content on each slide.<p>Interesting story though :)
I feel sad. My first cell phone was Motorolla Razr. It was great apart from the crappy J2ME OS but it was sturdy, long battery, could only use it to answer phones and type text messages.<p>I feel lucky to have bought this motorola moto g smart phone. It was way more value for the money it offered at. Everything works, much better than my old Galaxy Nexus.<p>It's kind unfair and harsh that the industry's early innovators could fall so quickly, as such is the case for Nokia.<p>I think that in this constantly cannabalizing industry, the lowest cost producer selling at cheapest prices will always end up driving incumbents out. Samsung is feeling the heat from Chinese companies because it failed to rebrand itself as an exclusive luxury product like Apple. Unfortunately the Android brand doesn't carry that brand premium, despite the fact that Galaxy phones are excellent in quality. But for Samsung, they are so big that even if they lost this smartphone market, they could continue to feed Korea from their numerous other industries. For Nokia and Motorola, they did not have the same luxury.
I see the message "Scroll or arrow down to keep reading.", but when I scroll or press down, nothing appears. I can't see any content. (Using Chrome. Nothing appears in the console. I selected "Audio Narration Off", if it makes a difference.)