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= Motorola =
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Introduction
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Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications
company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul
and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many
of Motorola's products had been radio-related communication equipment
such as two-way radios, consumer walkie-talkies, cellular
infrastructure, mobile phones, satellite communicators, pagers, as
well as cable modems and semiconductors. After having lost $4.3
billion from 2007 to 2009, Motorola was split into two independent
public companies: Motorola Solutions (its legal successor) and
Motorola Mobility (spun off), on January 4, 2011.
Motorola designed and sold wireless network equipment such as cellular
transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. Its business and
government customers consisted mainly of wireless voice and broadband
systems (used to build private networks), and public safety
communications systems like Astro and Dimetra. Motorola's home and
broadcast network products included set-top boxes, digital video
recorders, and network equipment used to enable video broadcasting,
computer telephony, and high-definition television. These businesses,
except for set-top boxes and cable modems, became part of Motorola
Solutions after the split of Motorola in 2011.
Motorola's wireless telephone handset division was a pioneer in
cellular telephones. Also known as the Personal Communication Sector
(PCS) prior to 2004, it pioneered the "mobile phone" with the first
truly mobile "brick phone" DynaTAC, "flip phone" with the MicroTAC as
well as the "clam phone" with the StarTAC in the mid-1990s. It had
staged a resurgence by the mid-2000s with the RAZR, but lost market
share in the second half of that decade, as the company's one-hit
wonders were not enough to reinstate Motorola as a leader. Later it
focused on smartphones using Google's Android mobile operating system,
the first released product being Motorola Droid in 2009. The handset
division was later spun off into Motorola Mobility.
History
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Motorola was founded in Chicago, Illinois, as Galvin Manufacturing
Corporation (at 847 West Harrison Street) in 1928.
Paul Galvin wanted a brand name for Galvin Manufacturing Corporation's
new car radio, and created the name "Motorola" by linking "motor"
(from motor car) with "ola" (from Victrola), which was also a popular
ending for many companies at the time, e.g. Moviola, Crayola. The
company sold its first Motorola branded radio on June 23, 1930, to
Herbert C. Wall of Fort Wayne, Indiana, for $30. The Motorola brand
name became so well known that Galvin Manufacturing Corporation later
changed its name to Motorola, Inc., in 1947.
Galvin Manufacturing Corporation began selling Motorola car-radio
receivers to police departments and municipalities in November 1930.
The company's first public safety customers (all in the U.S. state of
Illinois) included the Village of River Forest, Village of Bellwood
Police Department, City of Evanston Police, Illinois State Highway
Police, and Cook County (Chicago area) Police.
Many of Motorola's products have been radio-related, starting with a
battery eliminator for battery powered radios (during the burgeoning
electrification of rural homes), through the first handheld
walkie-talkie in the world in 1940, defense electronics, cellular
infrastructure equipment, and mobile phone manufacturing. In the same
year, the company built its research and development program with Dan
Noble, a pioneer in FM radio and semiconductor technologies, who
joined the company as director of research. The company produced the
hand-held AM SCR-536 radio during World War II, which was vital to
Allied communication. Motorola ranked 94th among United States
corporations in the value of World War II military production
contracts.
Motorola went public in 1943, and became Motorola, Inc. in 1947. At
that time Motorola's main business was producing and selling
televisions and radios.
Post World War II
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The last plant was listed in Quincy, Illinois at 1400 North 30th
Street where 1,200 employees made radio assemblies for both homes and
automobiles.
In 1969, Neil Armstrong spoke the famous words "That's one small step
for a man, one giant leap for mankind" from the Moon on a Motorola
transceiver.
In 1973, Motorola demonstrated the first hand-held portable telephone.
In 1974, Motorola introduced its first microprocessor, the 8-bit
MC6800, used in automotive, computing and video game applications. The
6800 was the basis for the more popular MOS Technology 6502 which was
made by former Motorola employees. That same year, Motorola sold its
television business to the Japan-based Matsushita - the parent company
of Panasonic.
In 1980, Motorola's next generation 32-bit microprocessor, the
MC68000, led the wave of technologies that spurred the computing
revolution in 1984, powering devices from companies such as Apple,
Commodore, Atari, Sun, and Hewlett-Packard.
In September 1983, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
approved the DynaTAC 8000X telephone, the world's first commercial
cellular device. By 1998, cell phones accounted for two thirds of
Motorola's gross revenue.
In 1986 Motorola acquired Storno resulting in a whole new range of
innovative communication products for the new owner, including the
NMT, an automatic cellular phone system, and made Motorola a more
central player in the early stages of the GSM standardization process
in 1987. With this addition Motorola strengthened its position in
Europe significantly. As Motorola's European development arm, Storno
developed a GSM terminal in 1992.
On January 29, 1988, Motorola sold its Arcade, New York facility and
automotive alternators, electromechanical speedometers and tachometers
products to Prestolite Electric.
In 1996, Motorola released the Motorola StarMax, which was a Macintosh
clone that was licensed by Apple and it came with System 7. However,
with the return of Steve Jobs to Apple in 1997, Apple released Mac OS
8. Because the clone makers' licenses were valid only for Apple's
System 7 operating system, Apple's release of Mac OS 8 left the clone
manufacturers unable to ship a current Mac OS version without
negotiation with Apple. A heated telephone conversation between Jobs
and then Motorola CEO Christopher Galvin resulted in the termination
of Motorola's clone contract, the discontinuation of the Motorola
StarMax, and the long-favored Apple being demoted to "just another
customer" mainly for PowerPC CPUs. Apple (and Jobs) did not want
Motorola to limit the PowerPC CPU supply so as retaliation, Apple and
IBM expelled Motorola from the AIM alliance and forced Motorola to
stop producing any PowerPC CPUs, leaving IBM to make all future
PowerPC CPUs. However, Motorola was later reinstated into the alliance
in 1998.
Neglect of the emerging digital cellular standards led to Motorola's
end as the dominant leader in mobile phone handsets in the second half
of the 1990s. In 1996 it fell behind Ericsson in the growing market
for digital phones in the U.S. In 1998, Motorola was overtaken by
Nokia as the world's biggest seller of mobile phone handsets. The
company was also struggling in microchips (which together with cell
phones accounted for the majority of Motorola's revenue), cellular
infrastructure equipment, and the Iridium satellite project that it
had invested in. Motorola sold some businesses during this period,
including in 1999 a portion of its semiconductor business--the
Semiconductor Components Group (SCG)-- and formed onsemi (then ON
Semiconductor), whose headquarters were located in Phoenix, Arizona.
After 2000
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By 2000, Motorola had shown signs of recovery from a long sustained
period of decline. It was still, however, losing money on every
handset sold, whereas Nokia was making large profits on each instead.
In June 2000, Motorola and Cisco supplied the world's first commercial
GPRS cellular network to BT Cellnet in the United Kingdom. Motorola
also developed the world's first GPRS cell phone.
In August 2000, Motorola acquired Printrak International Inc. for $160
million. In doing so, Motorola not only acquired computer aided
dispatch and related software, but also acquired Automated fingerprint
identification system software. With recent acquisitions from that
year, Motorola reached its peak employment of 150,000 employees
worldwide. Two years later, employment would be at 93,000 due to
layoffs and spinoffs.
The company's handset division began using the "Hello Moto" tagline in
advertizing in 2002 which later also became a signature ringtone.
In June 2005, Motorola overtook the intellectual property of Sendo for
$30,000 and paid £362,575 for the plant, machinery and equipment.
In June 2006, Motorola acquired the software platform (AJAR) developed
by the British company TTP Communications plc. Later in 2006, the firm
announced a music subscription service named 'iRadio'. The technology
came after a break in a partnership with Apple Computer (which in 2005
had produced an iTunes compatible cell phone ROKR E1, and most
recently, mid-2007, its own iPhone). iRadio was to have many
similarities with existing satellite radio services (such as Sirius
and XM Radio) by offering live streams of commercial-free music
content. Unlike satellite services, however, iRadio content would be
downloaded via a broadband internet connection. However, iRadio was
never commercially released.
Greg Brown became Motorola's chief executive officer in 2008. In
October 2008, Motorola agreed to sell its Biometrics business to
Safran, a French defense firm. Motorola's biometric business unit was
headquartered in Anaheim, California. The deal closed in April 2009.
The unit became part of Sagem Morpho, which was renamed MorphoTrak.
Split of Motorola
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On March 26, 2008, Motorola's board of directors approved a split into
two different publicly traded companies. This came after talk of
selling the company to another corporation. These new companies would
comprise the business units of Motorola Mobile Devices and Motorola
Broadband & Mobility Solutions. Originally it was expected that
this action would be approved by regulatory bodies and complete by
mid-2009, but the split was delayed due to company restructuring
problems and the 2008-2009 extreme economic downturn.
On February 11, 2010, Motorola announced it would separate into two
independent, publicly traded companies. The cell phone and cable
television equipment businesses would spin off to form Motorola
Mobility, while the remainder of Motorola, Inc., which comprised the
government and enterprise equipment businesses, would become Motorola
Solutions. The split was closed on January 4, 2011. Motorola Mobility
was eventually acquired by Google on May 22, 2012. Google later sold
Motorola Mobility's cable equipment business to Arris Group in
December 2012, and Motorola Mobility itself to Lenovo on October 30,
2014.
Divisions
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At the time of its split, Motorola had three divisions:
*Enterprise Mobility Solutions was headquartered in Schaumburg,
Illinois. It comprised communications offered to government and public
safety sectors and enterprise mobility business. Motorola developed
analog and digital two-way radio, voice and data communications
products and systems, mobile computing, advanced data capture,
wireless infrastructure and RFID solutions to customers worldwide.
*Home & Networks Mobility produced end-to-end systems that
facilitate uninterrupted access to digital entertainment, information
and communications services via wired and wireless mediums. Motorola
developed digital video system solutions, interactive set-top devices,
voice and data modems for digital subscriber line and cable networks,
broadband access systems for cable and satellite television operators,
and also wireline carriers and wireless service providers. It was
based in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
*Mobile Devices' headquarters were located in Chicago, Illinois, and
designed wireless handsets, but also licensed much of its intellectual
properties. This included cellular and wireless systems and as well as
integrated applications and Bluetooth accessories.
Finances
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Motorola's handset division recorded a loss of $1.2 billion in the
fourth quarter of 2007, while the company as a whole earned $100
million during that quarter. It lost several key executives to rivals,
and the website TrustedReviews called the company's products
repetitive and un-innovative. Motorola laid off 3,500 workers in
January 2008, followed by a further 4,000 job cuts in June and another
20% cut of its research division a few days later. In July 2008, a
large number of executives left Motorola to work on Apple Inc.'s
iPhone. The company's handset division was also put on offer for sale.
Also that month, analyst Mark McKechnie from American Technology
Research said that Motorola "would be lucky to fetch $500 million" for
selling its handset business. Analyst Richard Windsor said that
Motorola might have to pay someone to take the division off the
company's hands, and that Motorola may even exit the handset market
altogether. Its global market share has been on the decline; from
18.4% of the market in 2007 the company had a share of just 6.0% by Q1
2009, but at last, Motorola scored a profit of $26 million in Q2 and
showed an increase of 12% in stocks for the first time after losses in
many quarters. During the second quarter of 2010, the company reported
a profit of $162 million, which compared very favorably to the $26
million earned for the same period the year before. Its Mobile Devices
division reported, for the first time in years, earnings of $87
million.
Environmental record
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Motorola, Inc., along with the Arizona Water Co. had been identified
as the sources of trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination that took
place in Scottsdale, Arizona. The malfunction led to a ban on the use
of water that lasted three days and affected almost 5000 people in the
area. Motorola was found to be the main source of the TCE, an
industrial solvent that is thought to cause cancer. The TCE
contamination was caused by a faulty blower on an air stripping tower
that was used to take TCE from the water, and Motorola has attributed
the situation to operator error.
Of eighteen leading electronics manufacturers in Greenpeace's Guide to
Greener Electronics (October 2010), Motorola shared sixth place with
competitors Panasonic and Sony.
Motorola scored relatively well on the chemicals criteria and has a
goal to eliminate PVC plastic and Brominated flame retardants (BFRs),
though only in mobile devices and not in all its products introduced
after 2010, despite the fact that Sony Ericsson and Nokia were already
there. All of its mobile phones were now PVC-free and it had two PVC
and BFR-free mobile phones, the A45 ECO and the GRASP; all chargers
were also free from PVC and BFRs.
The company was also increasing the proportion of recycled materials
used in its products. For example, the housings for the MOTO W233
Renew and MOTOCUBO A45 Eco mobile phones contained plastic from
post-consumer recycled water cooler bottles. According to the
company's information, all of Motorola's newly designed chargers met
the current Energy Star requirements and exceed the requirements for
standby/no-load modes by at least 67%.
See also
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* List of Motorola products
* List of companies of the United States
* List of electronics companies
External links
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* [
https://web.archive.org/web/20101231101257/http://www.motorola.com/
Official website] (archived December 31, 2010)
*
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20000815232136/http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=mot&script=400&layout=7&item_id=%270%27
Archived press releases (Q1 1998 to Q3 2000)]
License
=========
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License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola
