The Moto Z10 kick-slider mobile device has been introduced in the UK by communications solutions provider Motorola, enabling users to shoot, edit and share videos direct from the device.
The Moto Z10 features a 3.2 megapixel camera, with superfast burst mode delivering three shots per second; 30 f/s video capture; HSDPA, Symbian UIQ and 3.5G technology; and 2.2″ QVGA display for 30f/s video playback and Bluetooth.
According to Motorola, the MOTO Z10 provides a complete, pocket-sized, mobile film-studio with 3G technology, allowing users to capture high-quality video, edit clips, create scene transitions and add title slides and a soundtrack.
The device is available in the UK in a spun stainless steel, polished metallic finish and soft-feel textures, from O2 retail shops, with release planned from mid-May in the rest of Europe.
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Global demand for mobile phones remains strong, despite economic uncertainty in rich nations and rising food prices in poorer countries.
Consultancy firm Strategy Analytics says 282 million handsets were shipped worldwide in the first three months of 2008, up 14% from a year ago. The growth was driven by rising demand in markets such as Africa and Asia. Nokia maintained its dominant position with a 40.9% market share but shipments of LG and Samsung phones grew fastest. Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Apple lost market share in the quarter.
“Motorola’s 10% global market share is at the lowest level since our records began,” Strategy Analytics said. “It is in real danger of being overtaken by LG.” It said Motorola’s handsets were “unexciting”, while LG’s “good looking” and “feature rich” handsets were popular amongst consumers.Demand for mobile phones was most brisk in emerging markets, particularly in Africa and Asia. It said that rocketing food prices in developing countries and the financial crisis affecting richer countries had so far had limited impact on demand for mobile handsets.
Strategy Analytics forecasts demand will continue to rise, but at a slightly slower rate. It predicts 290 million handsets will be sold in the second quarter of this year, up 12% from the same period a year earlier.
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- April 11th, 2008
- 12:54 pm
The WiMax Forum has certified the first Mobile WiMax products, announcing this week that four base stations and four data cards have received the Forum seal. Though the first “official” Mobile WiMax products in the market, they are targeted solely on the South Korean market where Korea Telecom has been operating a pre-WiMax network for two years.
The first wave of WiMax testing essentially certifies Samsung and its partners, who have pushed for its WiBro technology’s inclusion into the WiMax standard. Based on the same IEEE 802.16e as traditional mobile WiMax, WiBro uses unique frequencies (2.3 GHz) and odd channel sizes (9 MHz), and the equipment can only be sold in Korea. The gear is also probably the only WiMax line that will not include support for multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) smart antenna technologies.
That’s all fine by Korea Telecom, which immediately stated it would begin using the new certified products in its now-WiMax network. KT first launched commercial service in 2005 using Samsung gear and has signed up 100,000 subscribers and sold a variety of devices from laptop dongles to miniature computers.
While the certification of Wave 1 products for Korea is a mainly a milestone, the forum said it signals the ramping up of its interoperability and compliance testing throughout its global lab network. With the first wave under its belt, the forum will now move ahead much more quickly in its certification efforts for North American and global products, said Ron Resnick, WiMax Forum president.
“Stay tuned,” Resnick said in a statement. “We expect this momentum to continue throughout the year when the first products for the 2.5 GHz frequency achieve certification in the coming months.”
The 2.5 GHz licenses are owned by Sprint and Clearwire in the US, and Wave 2 certification is expected to produce the first base stations, home gateway and PC card products for their networks. While Resnick gave no exact date for those first products to appear, they will likely coincide with or shortly follow Sprint’s commercial launch of Xohm this quarter.
The forum also has a lot of other profiles on its plate. Global 3.5 GHz frequencies have also been identified as optimal for WiMax and have spawned numerous trials in Europe as well as small-scale commercial rollouts. The forum has also said it would certify gear at 700 MHz to support the networks of the recent auction winners.
The forum’s certification priorities, however, follow the interests of its large operator and vendor membership closely. KT was the first WiMax operator to launch, thus WiBro was the first profile certified. Sprint is next, and therefore its 2.5 GHz MIMO profile is the next to hit the labs. As more major operators make their 4G network decisions, the forum as well as its vendor membership will likely fall in lockstep.
BT has been contemplating expanding its WiFi wireless strategy to the wide area network using WiMax and is likely to participate in the upcoming 2.6 GHz auction in the UK. Japan has also become a hotspot for WiMax as the consortium UQ communications plans a nationwide rollout covering 90% of the population by 2012, using the same 2.5 GHz spectrum allocated in the US. However, UQ member KDDI is reportedly considering following in fellow CDMA operators Verizon’s footsteps in pursuing Long Term Evolution. India is another big market, having recently produced not one but two major operators pursuing large-scale broadband access plans using WiMax, one also at 2.5 GHz, the other at 3.3 GHz.
With all of the interest in 2.5 GHz, the next wave of certification will be a highly active one. The forum expects hundreds of products to be certified by the end of the year, the majority of them Wave 2, as opposed to the eight that came out of Wave 1. Most vendors opted to skip Wave 1 entirely since Samsung has a lock on the KT contract. All four vendors participating—Samsung, Posdata, Runcom and Sequans–had base stations certified. Sequans Communications won approval for a reference design built around its base-station chip, a clear indication it’s seeking OEM agreements with other manufacturers to get into the Korean WiMax business.
At the WiMax World Congress in Singapore this week, Motorola also unveiled a new compact base station, though it did not get it certified by the forum. The WAP 450 is a variant of its traditional Moto Wi4 Diversity base station, except it has a more powerful radio frequency module at the tower top. The RF module receives direct power, thus enhancing its capacity and coverage without directly boosting power consumption. Traditional ground base stations shed half of their power funneling their signals through cables to the antenna.
Motorola and UTStarcom also announced they have landed a joint contract with First International Telecom to build out a WiMax network in northern Taiwan. The deal is Motorola’s third in Taiwan in eight months.
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- April 11th, 2008
- 10:26 am
Former AT&T’s CEO David Dorman will become Motorola’s chairman next month as the struggling mobile phone maker tries to fix its slumping fortunes and split itself into two companies, an Associated Press report said.
The announcement comes two days after Motorola ended a proxy fight with activist investor Carl Icahn, agreeing to give two of his nominees seats on its board of directors.
Dorman, 54, will assume the non-executive position on 5 May, after chairman and former chief executive Ed Zander retires at the company’s annual meeting.
He’ll be in charge of the board, but have no role in the day-to-day business of the company, the report said.
Dorman has spent nearly three decades in telecoms, working at Sprint, Pacific Bell, SBC and Concert, a global venture between AT&T and BT. He became AT&T’s president in December 2000 and served as the company’s chairman and CEO from 2002 until November 2005. He joined the board of Schaumburg-based Motorola in 2006.
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Motorola is to close its Singapore handset production plant by the end of the year, cutting 700 jobs.
A company spokesperson said the closure was part of a global program to reduce annual costs by $500 million.
Motorola would maintain its Asia-Pacific headquarters and its handset R&D facility in Singapore, the official said.
The US phone-maker will begin scaling down its production in the second quarter and will shutter its production and distribution centers by the end of 2008.
Production will be transferred to other regional plants in Tianjin, China, and elsewhere.
The struggling handset maker lost its position as second largest phone-maker last year to Samsung, thanks to a lack of fresh popular handsets.
CEO Greg Brown has warned the recovery will take longer than expected, and has just announced plans to split the networks and handset divisions into separate companies.
Despite the cutbacks, Asia was still a critical part of Motorola’s rebuilding program, the official said.
“The importance of the market hasn’t changed. Asia is still a big chunk of Motorola’s business.”
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Indian consumer electronics company insists Moto is interested in selling Mobile Devices unit.
Indian conglomerate Videocon Group plans to make an offer for Motorola’s handset business, according to comments made by the company’s chairman Tuesday.
“We are sending [Motorola] an ‘expression of interest’ to buy their handset business. It is true that they have not called for bids, but we have information that Motorola is interested to sell off their handset division,” said Venugopal Dhoot, chairman of Videocon, in a report by Dow Jones Newswires.
“We are in consumer durables, we are in retail and we also have mobile phone licences in India,” he told Bloomberg, adding that a mobile phone vendor business would “complete the full chain.”
Speaking to Total Telecom, sources at Videocon could neither confirm nor deny the reports.
Similarly, Motorola has not commented.
Motorola last week announced plans to spin off its struggling handset division amid pressure from billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn.
The vendor said it plans to create two separate businesses - Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility Solutions - in 2009, but did not mention an outright sale of the division.
Nonetheless, speculation has been rife that Moto’s next step will be to sell off the unit.
However, when Motorola initially announced it was reviewing its strategic options regarding the troubled unit, rival handset makers Nokia, Samsung and LG were quick to distance themselves from the proposition that one of them would make a move for the business.
Meanwhile, Videocon has been making vast investments in its telecoms operations over the last month.
Its telecoms subsidiary Datacom was issued a GSM licence by the Indian government in mid-March and has since pledged to invest 60 billion rupees ($1.5 billion) in rolling out services across the country’s 23 telecoms circles.
Furthermore, press reports two weeks ago said Datacom was lining up a $3.2 billion order for 40 million mobile phone lines to be delivered over the next five years.
The company said that Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei were all in the running for the contract.
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After a two-month strategic review of its businesses, Motorola said on Wednesday that it would split itself into two separate publicly traded companies, spinning off its unprofitable mobile phone unit to investors.
The activist investor Carl C. Icahn, who has pressured Motorola to make such a move, said in a letter to its board that the announcement was “clearly a step in the right direction.” But he questioned Motorola’s commitment to moving quickly to solve its problems.
Gregory Q. Brown, Motorola’s chief executive, conceded that the main problem facing the company was its inability to come up with new products to replace the highly successful Razr, which was once a must-have phone but has faded from the scene.
He said he hoped that by turning the mobile devices business into its own unit, the company would have better luck attracting a new chief executive to run it and revive Motorola’s reputation.
“I think the challenges around Motorola have been about consistent execution,” Mr. Brown said. “That is why it is so important for us to expand and improve our product portfolio.”
Motorola’s influence and stock price have declined as rivals have taken the lead in creating interesting devices. Apple and its popular iPhone, for example, have captured the attention of buyers in the high-end market.
Executives of Motorola, which is based in Schaumburg, Ill., declined to talk about what new handsets it planned to offer consumers in the coming months.
Next week is a big one for the mobile business, as all of the top handset makers and wireless companies are gathering in Las Vegas for the industry’s largest American trade show, CTIA Wireless 2008. Many will take the opportunity to unveil flashy new phones that consumers will be snapping up over the next year.
But when it comes to Motorola, expectations are low.
“It will be interesting to see if they announce anything at CTIA,” said Roger Entner, a senior vice president at IAG Research.
Rivals aside, Motorola is also facing pressure from investors — in particular Mr. Icahn — who are dissatisfied with Motorola’s weak stock performance; the shares have dropped 44 percent in the last year. Cellphone production is the largest division of the company, with $18.99 billion in net sales in 2007, a 33 percent decline from a year earlier. Last year, the division lost $1.2 billion. Motorola’s other two units are smaller but profitable.
Analysts have questioned what effect a split would have on operations and on attracting solid executives to the troubled company. Already there has been an exodus of executives from Motorola, among them Stu Reed, the former chief of the mobile devices division.
“The danger is they are getting rid of the underperforming part of the business just to get rid of it,” Mr. Entner of IAG said. “The fear is in a year or two the operations will cease to exist.”
The profitable side of Motorola is decidedly less well known than the mobile devices division. It makes set-top boxes and products used by businesses and law enforcement officials for scanning and fingerprinting, as well as data and video communications systems for public agencies like fire departments.
Motorola expects to have the spinoff, which will be a tax-free distribution to shareholders, completed by 2009.
The move to split the company has long been advocated by Mr. Icahn, who led a fight last year for a seat on Motorola’s board. That effort failed, but it helped lead to the departure of the chief executive, Edward J. Zander, who was succeeded by Mr. Brown.
This week, Mr. Icahn sued Motorola, demanding internal board documents that he believed would show that it was lax in its oversight of management. Mr. Icahn is now leading a proxy fight for four Motorola board seats ahead of the company’s annual meeting in May.
In his letter to the board, Mr. Icahn also questioned why it would take so long to complete the split, and why it took “the threat of a proxy fight for you to make promises we all want to hear.” He did not return calls seeking comment.
There is still the chance that Mr. Brown and his board could decide to sell the mobile phone division if they do not find a suitable chief executive to run it. Selling it to a competitor was one option that Motorola pursued, according to a person involved in those discussions, but there were no takers.
Mr. Brown declined to discuss whether the division could be sold. “We’ve never had a ‘For Sale’ sign on it,” he said. “After our review, we believe this is the appropriate action.”
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With Motorola’s handset division breaking off, we wonder about the future for the mighty manufacturer and make some suggestions for where to go from here.
Here’s what nobody is saying about Motorola: People are still buying RAZRs. They may not hold the brand cache they once had, but Motorola still makes popular and recognizable phones. The brand isn’t dead, not by a long shot. But their fall from grace in the U.S. market at a crucial time, as smartphones and multimedia phones began to take over the market, means that they will have to take some drastic measures to catch up worldwide, and hold onto their current domestic leadership position.
No plans in sight
Today, we listened in on a conference call with heads of numerous Motorola divisions, but the only handset we heard about was the Motorola DH02, an internet tablet with DVB-H mobile TV and GPS navigation. Oh, and it won’t be available in the U.S., though we’ll see it in person next week at the largest phone show in the country, CTIA 2008. We heard about WiMAX and LTE devices, and even Femtocell devices, of which we’re a huge fan. But we didn’t hear a peep from the nascent Motorola Mobile Devices division. Maybe this is a good sign. Maybe the handset folks are keeping something interesting under wraps. Probably not, but it could happen.
If you broke it, buy it
Motorola needs to use their existing talent in mobile technology and pair this with better design. Better interface design, as well as better hardware design. For the interface, we think this is a no-brainer. Nvidia has a gorgeous phone interface ready to go, they just need a good phone hardware manufacturer to produce it. Check out our video of the Nvidia APX 2500 prototype chipset and interface here. Motorola certainly has the wireless chops to build a platform beneath the Nvidia prototype. This would also fill the gap in Motorola’s multimedia phone offerings, one of the key categories for the manufacturer moving forward.
The smell of fresh BlackBerries
The other category will be smartphones. The Motorola Q9 is a perfectly fine Windows Mobile smartphone, and it fares well against its current competition. But heavier competition looms on the horizon, as Sony Ericsson and HTC have new Windows Mobile phones coming to the U.S. market that promise great strides in making Windows Mobile even more usable. It’s time for Motorola to improve not only their Windows Mobile smartphone hardware, but also take some steps to improve the interface. Improvements in the Q’s battery life shows Motorola is taking RIM’s BlackBerry seriously as a threat, but the current lineup of BlackBerry devices, from the Pearl through the Curve and the 8800 series, all seriously outclass the Motorola smartphone. Moto needs to do more than play catch-up. They need to leap ahead.
In the end, we would certainly not write Motorola off. If for no other reason, the manufacturer has shown a dedication to the U.S. market that most of the top tier manufacturers haven’t matched. Hardly a high-end model is released without making a stateside appearance, with a few notable exceptions, but what other manufacturer is still supporting iDen? Who else makes so many phones for every major American carrier? After the Star Tac, the RAZR, we think it’s believable that Motorola could pull another hit out of their sleeve.
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In the wake of the announcement that it plans to split its Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility Solutions divisions into two separate businesses, Motorola has laid off several engineers, some working on research and development of mobile devices.According to the communications technology giant, the layoffs affected research and development employees and research and development support groups at Motorola’s engineering facility based in Plantation, Fla. The vendor confirmed the layoffs on Thursday, but would not provide a specific number of employees affected.
“Motorola confirms that as part of its strategic review of business operations, which includes a previously announced $500 million cost-reduction initiative, the company has implemented workforce reductions aimed at making financial resources available for strategic business investment, while better aligning operational costs and expenses with business growth,” a Motorola representative said in statement emailed to ChannelWeb.com.
“Eligible affected employees are being provided with severance packages and outplacement support,” the statement continued. “The company anticipates filing an 8K next week.”
While Motorola wouldn’t confirm the number of employees laid off, sources told ChannelWeb that 350 engineers in the Plantation facility were let go. It was unclear Thursday if more were affected.
Motorola said the Plantation facility houses several operations branches, including mobile devices, government and public safety and home and network mobility divisions.
The goal of the layoffs, Motorola said, is to help position Motorola for sustained future growth.
“We’re continually evaluating opportunities for increased efficiencies and cost savings so further cost saving measures will be announced as opportunities are identified,” said Paula Thornton-Greear, a Motorola spokeswoman.
The layoffs came the same day the Schaumburg, Ill.-based vendor announced that it is spinning off its struggling Mobile Devices business, which had come under fire from shareholders for underperformance and poor leadership.
In a conference call Wednesday morning, Motorola CEO Greg Brown said the decision to split Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility Solutions into two separate, publicly traded companies came after an evaluation of structural and strategic realignment of its businesses to create better success for both independent arms.
Motorola’s Mobile Devices business has been struggling of late, in the final quarter of last year, Motorola told investors that net profit was down 84 percent and sales of mobile phones fell 38 percent. Conversely, rivals like Samsung and Nokia continued success.
The hunt is now on for a CEO to head up the Mobile Devices business, Brown said. He said he hopes the spinoff will help Motorola capture the success in the device market that it had when it introduced the widely popular Moto RAZR and the Motorola Q smartphone just a few years ago.
“We expect this action to enhance the pace of recovery in Mobile Devices, to pave the way for its return as a leader in its industry, to accelerate our efforts to attract a new leader and to create shareholder value,” Brown said in the conference call.
The split came just days after Carl Icahn, Motorola’s second-largest shareholder filed a lawsuit requesting documents pertaining to the ailing Mobile Devices division. Icahn chastised Motorola for poor leadership said the device business has “gone from bad to worse” and has become a “stockholders’ nightmare.”
Icahn’s suit demands that Motorola turn over records pertaining to the struggling Mobile Devices business and documents detailing the use of a corporate jet by top Motorola executives and their families. Icahn claimed the devices business was lagging due to poor guidance by the board of directors. He requested documents that offered insight into the direction of the devices business.
“Over the past 12 months the statements and predictions of Motorola’s management and the Board about the Mobile Devices business have too often proven to be wrong,” Icahn wrote in a statement. “We want to ascertain what the board could have done in the exercise of its fiduciary duty to assure Motorola stockholders that Motorola’s statements and predictions were not incorrect and would not provide Motorola stockholders with an inaccurate perspective on the prospects for the Mobile Devices business.”
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- March 27th, 2008
- 12:28 pm
Motorola, Inc. MOT today announced that the Company’s Board of Directors has commenced a process to create two independent, publicly-traded companies. Today’s decision follows the Company’s January 31, 2008 announced evaluation of the structural and strategic realignment of its businesses and represents affirmative steps to position its Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility Solutions businesses for success, while creating value for all Motorola shareholders.
“Our decision to separate our Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility Solutions businesses follows a review process undertaken by our management team and Board of Directors, together with independent advisors,” said Greg Brown, Motorola’s president and chief executive officer. “Creating two industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored capital structures, and increased management focus - as well as more targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders.”
Based on current plans, the creation of the two stand-alone businesses is expected to take the form of a tax-free distribution to Motorola’s shareholders, subject to further financial, tax and legal analysis, resulting in shareholders holding shares of two independent and publicly-traded companies:
The Mobile Devices business is an industry leader in multi-mode,multi-band communications products and technologies. The business designs, manufactures and sells mobile handsets and accessories globally with integrated software solutions that incorporate the latest personal communications technologies. It also licenses a portfolio of intellectual property.
The Broadband & Mobility Solutions business includes Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility, Government and Public Safety, and Home and Networks businesses. These businesses manufacture, design, integrate,and service voice and data communication solutions and wirelessbroadband networks for enterprises and government and public safety
customers worldwide. These businesses also provide end-to-end digitaland Internet Protocol (IP) video solutions, cellular and high speed broadband network infrastructure, cable set-top receivers, andassociated customer premise equipment for residential and commercialwireless network system access.
“Our priorities have not changed with today’s announcement,” added Brown. “We remain committed to improving the performance of our Mobile Devices business by delivering compelling products that meet the needs of customers and consumers around the world. As part of that effort, we have undertaken a global search for a new chief executive officer for the Mobile Devices business. We believe strongly in our brand, our people and our intellectual property, and expect that the Mobile Devices business will be well-positioned to regain market leadership as a focused, independent company.”
The completion of any separation transaction would be subject to certain customary conditions, including implementation of inter-company agreements, filing of required documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission and receipt of an opinion of counsel or a ruling from the Internal Revenue Service as to the tax-free nature of any transaction. The Company expects that the separation of its businesses, if consummated, would take place in 2009. The Company noted that there can be no assurance that any separation transaction will ultimately occur or, if one does occur, its terms or timing.
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Motorola unveils Moto Z10 in UK market
