Everything about Motorola totally explained
Motorola Inc. is an
American,
Fortune 100,
telecommunications company based in
Schaumburg, Illinois, a
Chicago suburb. It is a manufacturer of wireless telephone handsets, also designing and selling wireless network infrastructure equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. Motorola's home and broadcast network products include set-top boxes, digital video recorders, and network equipment used to enable video broadcasting, computer telephony, and high-definition television. Its business and government customers consist mainly of wireless voice and broadband systems used to build private networks and public safety communications systems.
History
Motorola started as
Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in
1928. The name Motorola was adopted in
1930, and the word has been used as a
trademark since the
1930s. Founders
Paul Galvin and Joseph Galvin came up with the name
Motorola when the company started manufacturing
car radios.
Many of Motorola's products have been
radio-related, starting with a
battery eliminator for radios, through the first
walkie-talkie in the
world,
defense electronics,
cellular infrastructure equipment, and
mobile phone manufacturing. In September 1983, the firm made history when the
FCC approved the
DynaTAC 8000X telephone, the world's first-only commercial cellular device. The company was also strong in
semiconductor technology, including
integrated circuits used in
computers. Motorola has been the main supplier for the
microprocessors used in
Atari ST,
Commodore Amiga,
Apple Macintosh and
Power Macintosh personal computers. The
chip used in the latter computers, the
PowerPC family, was developed with
IBM and in a partnership with Apple (known as the
AIM alliance). Motorola also has a diverse line of communication products, including
satellite systems,
digital cable boxes and
modems.
On September 15, 1999, Motorola said it would buy
General Instrument in an $11 billion stock swap. General Instrument had long been the No. 1 cable TV equipment provider, supplying cable operators with end-to-end hybrid fiber coax cable solutions. This meant that GI offers all cable TV transmission network components from the head-end to the fiber optic transmission nodes to the cable set-top boxes, now at the availability of Motorola.
Current Crisis and Corruption
Motorola continues to experience a major crisis with its handset division, which recorded a disasterous loss of $1.2 billion in Q4 2007 and continues to make losses every quarter since then. Along with a fatal
corruption incident at the top management level, it lost several key executives and its products have shown no sign of improvement, still remaining repetitive and uninnovative. Facing bankruptcy, the company has been put on offer for sale to several other major rivals such as
Samsung Electronics,
LG Electronics and
Sony Ericsson, yet all have rejected the offer.
Its global market share has been continuously on the decline; from 18.4% of the market in 2007, it had a share of just 9.7% by 2008. In contrast, Motorola's rivals flourished and by July 2007, its long chasing
South Korean rival,
Samsung Electronics, surpassed it as the new world's 2nd largest handset maker - with a surge in market share in Q1 2008, Samsung now commands a large share of 16.4% and continues to absorb Motorola's declining global share. Motorola is currently on the verge of losing its weak 3rd place position to the fast rising
South Korean multinational
LG Electronics, which overtook
Sony Ericsson in Q1 2008 with a strong increase in market share to 8.6%, now aiming to overtake Motorola.
Products
Motorola creates numerous products for use of the government, public safety officials, business installments, and the general public. These products include, laptops, computer processors, and radio communication devices. The
Motorola RAZR line has sold over a 110 million units bringing the company to the number two mobile phone slot in
2005.
Divisional Products:
-Enterprise Mobility Solutions: Comprises communications offered by government and public safety sectors and enterprise mobility business. Motorola develops 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: Produces end-to-end systems that facilitate uninterrupted access to digital entertainment, information and communications services via wired and wireless mediums. Motorola develops 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.
-Mobile Devices: Motorola, currently the least prosperous arm of the firm, designs wireless handsets, but also licenses much of its intellectual properties. This includes cellular and wireless systems and as well as integrated applications, and Bluetooth® accessories.
See also:
List of Motorola products (including Freescale's
semiconductors)
Spin-offs
Motorola developed the first truly global communication network using a set of 66 satellites. The business ambitions behind this project and the need for raising venture capital to fund the project led to the creation of the
Iridium company in the late 1990s. While the technology was proven to work, Iridium failed to attract sufficient customers and they filed for bankruptcy in
1999. Obligations to Motorola and loss of expected revenue caused Motorola to spin off the
ON Semiconductor (ONNN) business
August 4,
1999, raising for Motorola of about $1.1 Billion.
Further declines in business during
2000 and
2001, caused Motorola to spin off its government and defense business to
General Dynamics. The business deal closed September
2001. Thus GD Decision Systems was formed (and later merged with General Dynamics C4 Systems) from Motorola's Integrated Information Systems Group.
On
October 16,
2003, Motorola announced that it would spin off its
semiconductor product into a separate company called
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.. The new company began trading on the
New York Stock Exchange on July 16th of the following year.
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 handset division to another corporation. These new companies are
Motorola Mobile Devices and
Motorola Broadband & Mobility Solutions. It is expected that this action will be approved by regulatory bodies and will be complete by 2009.
Quality systems
The
Six Sigma quality system was developed at Motorola even though it became best known through its use by
General Electric. It was created by engineer
Bill Smith, under the direction of
Bob Galvin (son of founder Paul Galvin) when he was running the company.
Motorola University is one of many places that provide Six Sigma training.
Environmental Record
The cell phone industry, and the fact that people are constantly upgrading their cellular phones, are contributing to electronic waste (e-waste)'s position as the fastest growing element of solid waste. Shipments of broken electronic devices have been reaching the harbors of Kenya, India, and China, despite international agreements that prohibit the import and export of hazardous waste. The Environmental Protection Agency attributed this problem to their estimation that exporting e-waste is as much as 10 times less expensive than disposing of it in the United States. Though there may be these financial reasons involved, the fact of the matter is that e-waste has been found to contain cadmium, lead, barium, and mercury. These and other elements found all add up to support one important detail: e-waste can be very toxic; Lead has been linked with damaging affects on child development and on both the central and peripheral nervous system, and repetitive exposure to cadmium can lead to damage of the lungs, kidney, and liver.
In order to recover these metals from the electronic waste, acid baths and open fires are often used, which create fumes and acid spillage that can lead to a not-so-safe workplace. The metals can also contaminate groundwater and accumulate in landfills.
Motorola, Inc., along with the Arizona Water Co. has been identified as the sources of 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's though 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.
Ratings from interest groups
Motorola received a 100% rating on the
Corporate Equality Index released by the
Human Rights Campaign in
2004,
2005, and
2006, starting in the third year of the report.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Motorola'.
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