
Goodbye Moto - paralelogram
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/goodbye-moto
======
blu_jay
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.

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.

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.

~~~
ansible
_I still have hope in this company._

That's good I suppose. But I've heard from people in Schaumburg that there are
more layoffs coming. I know a guy who took a severance package, rather than
wait it out.

Just saying... at least get your resume ready, and work out now who you'll
want to use for references.

The Chicago area used to be a tech hub, especially with regards to telecom. It
is shocking how much has changed in the last 15 years.

------
ChrisNorstrom
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.

● 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.

● 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.

● 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.

~~~
dragontamer
>> 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.

Did you read the part about internal fiefdoms competing for a single pool of
research money? Turning your own company and your own workers against each
other is the classic way of burning all of your human resources (Microsoft
Stack Ranking, Fall of Motorola, Fall of Nokia...)

~~~
raverbashing
Ok, there are important subtleties there

You can't have your sectors compete by doing similar things.

At the same time, you _have_ to float innovations up when they appear.

Competition has to mean empowerment, not bean-counting and tug-of-war

Microsoft could have invented the tablet, but of course the Windows division
cut it off (there's an MS story about that which I can't find right now)

And the vision from above has to be clear and certain, otherwise you end with
MS Surface, Zune, etc

Apple's product development is full of bumps and fights as well, but they
listen to the innovators, not the naysayers or the people who think the iPad
couldn't be shipped without an Office app

~~~
dragontamer
> Microsoft could have invented the tablet, but of course the Windows division
> cut it off (there's an MS story about that which I can't find right now)

Microsoft _did_ invent the tablet. PC Tablet was around in Windows XP. It had
gesture support and handwriting recognition since 2001.

Technology isn't about making new technologies unfortunately. Its about
marketing new technologies and convincing tons of people to buy your stuff. It
doesn't matter if you invented it first, aside from maybe the occasional
Patents War...

> And the vision from above has to be clear and certain, otherwise you end
> with MS Surface, Zune, etc

Surface is one of the few things from Microsoft that is actually succeeding
right now btw. But in case, innovation is _literally_ about embracing the
unknown before you know what to do with it.

There cannot be any "clear and certain" vision on innovative products.
Otherwise, it wasn't really innovative to begin with.

I dunno, it just seems like your comment was especially "buzzwordy". In my
experience, true innovation is hard as all heck to back, because nobody "gets"
it. Marketing is a major problem... not just marketing to the rest of the
world but also selling an innovation to your direct superior within your own
team.

~~~
raverbashing
> Surface is one of the few things from Microsoft that is actually succeeding
> right now btw.

Really?

[http://thediplomat.com/2013/08/steve-ballmer-to-retire-
after...](http://thediplomat.com/2013/08/steve-ballmer-to-retire-
after-900m-microsoft-surface-rt-write-down/)

[http://mashable.com/2013/07/19/surface-rt-
failure/](http://mashable.com/2013/07/19/surface-rt-failure/)

[https://bgr.com/2014/11/05/surface-pro-3-vs-ipad-
air/](https://bgr.com/2014/11/05/surface-pro-3-vs-ipad-air/)

------
ams6110
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.

~~~
go1979
Motorola had J2ME-based programmable phones around the year 2000. I believe
that was the first smartphone in the US. Back in the day, I developed a few
apps and tried to release them for free. I was asked a few grand for the apps
to be "certified" for release. The nerve! I moved onto other things in life
but it was interesting how it played out and here we are today.

~~~
haddr
I remember trying to hack some application for Motorola Razr V3, but
unfortunately, the J2ME apps needed to be signed in order to work, so I was
quite dissapointed...

~~~
stuaxo
Used to develop J2ME apps, pretty sure they didn't. There was a weird app you
could use to get them on to any of that generation motorola phones.

The JVM was utter crap though, with no JIT, so everything was 1/10th of the
speed of Sony Ericsson phones or Nokia of the same era... still, at least they
weren't too nonstandard, like Samsung and Lg who would change JVM and bugs
every phone.

~~~
haddr
For the handset i owned it was impossible. I needed access to the storage and
that was impossible without having your app signed...

------
ziles88
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'.

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.

It's still a billion dollar company, what are we even saying 'bye' to?

~~~
melling
"A billion dollar company"

Wasn't that Blackberry's line?

[https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ABBRY&ei=h3SiVanIKY...](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ABBRY&ei=h3SiVanIKYy5e9_dmbAD)

Could have been Sun Microsytem's too.

I think they're saying bye to relevance and innovation. They're worth half as
much as Tesla, for example.

~~~
atinoda-kestrel
> Wasn't that Blackberry's line?

Yes, and years later BlackBerry is still around, with a CEO that's almost
finished reversing the damage the previous ones caused.

I get your point, but still. Also, you seem to be conflating stock price with
company success, health, etc. You shouldn't. Post 90s, they're pretty divorced
from one another.

> I think they're saying bye to relevance and innovation. They're worth half
> as much as Tesla, for example.

No, they're worth half as much as Tesla according to the stock market. There's
a big difference.

~~~
nullrouted
Can you tell us how they have reversed the damage? I don't see anyone carrying
blackberrys anymore.

~~~
atinoda-kestrel
They're not done yet. But they've slowed the bleeding tremendously, gotten out
of unprofitable businesses, actually shipped the damn OS (instead of farting
around with demos and research), and are working to ensure that QNX provides a
solid revenue stream in the mean time.

BlackBerry under the previous CEOs was much like Sun: lots of cool ideas, lots
of smart people, but no direction towards shipping products people wanted.

Now it's like Apple shortly after buying NeXT. Only with no advertising (their
current biggest flaw).

------
ris
This is somewhat offtopic, but...

If you continually have to tell your reader to "Scroll or arrow down to keep
reading", something is _wrong_ with the way you are presenting a webpage.

No matter how fashionable the techniques you're using are.

------
petercooper
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).

~~~
ams6110
I found the cartoon format odd for a publication like Crain's. I remember them
as a "serious" business publication but it's been many years since I really
paid them any attention.

I didn't really mind reading it, though.

~~~
M2Ys4U
The BBC is also experimenting with this format[0], albeit sans voice
narration.

[0]:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/taster/projects/hooked](http://www.bbc.co.uk/taster/projects/hooked)

------
TheMagicHorsey
Companies are always rising and falling in America. That is a good thing.

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.

~~~
arkitaip
You honestly believe that all the thousands of people left at Motorola are the
left overs? That's a cynical and very unproductive view.

~~~
TheMagicHorsey
It may sound harsh, but getting a Motorola job is no longer considered a top
choice by engineering students. I don't even think they figure in the top
twenty employers.

Many people at Motorola are excellent I'm sure. But for whatever reason, they
don't have better options. There are many excellent unemployed people too.
Employers don't have perfect information about these excellent workers ...
that's the problem.

However, for whatever the reason ... the people at Motorola (not all of them,
just most of them) are stuck there because they don't have an offer from a
better company.

------
lnanek2
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.

~~~
pimlottc
Odd, worked for me on same.

------
merb
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)

------
amelius
I'm missing a part in the history, where they were making CPUs, like the 6502
and the 68000 series (both used in Apple products).

~~~
beagle3
6502 was made by MOS Technology[0]. You're thinking of the 6800 family, which
was, indeed, awesome - the 6809E powered the Dragon computer.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6502](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6502)

~~~
ams6110
I first learned assembly language on a computer similar to this:
[http://www.computercloset.org/SmokeSignalChieftain.htm](http://www.computercloset.org/SmokeSignalChieftain.htm)
though it had a 6809 processor. School had a lab full of them. Completely
stand-alone of course, to print you had to take a floppy disk over to the one
machine that had an attached printer. Spent many late evenings there.

------
agumonkey
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.

------
raverbashing
My theory about why these big hardware companies went bust (Motorola, Siemens,
Philips, etc):

\- They never got software development right, they couldn't grow sw
development beyond some basic ones for hardware

\- They never got User Experience right. They never thought it was an issue,
or they developed for engineers, not everyday people

\- 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)

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 _one thing_
right.

~~~
abcd_f
Siemens went bust? Don't smoke _that_ again.

~~~
raverbashing
Where can I buy those Siemens mobile phones again?

You are aware about NSN, right? The one that was bought by Nokia

A lot of divisions sold and/or shutdown

I'm not googling it for you though.

~~~
currysausage
Siemens COM was split into several smaller companies which were all sold. [1]
Shares in B2C joint ventures (Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Bosch and Siemens
Home Appliances) were sold to the respective partners. Siemens (energy,
industry, mobility, healthcare technology) is alive and well (and quite huge,
with 362,000 employees and a revenue of €71.9 billion), nowadays targeting
profitable B2B markets.

Philips is going through some struggle, but they are still an important player
on the lightning and healthcare technology markets. Just compare Philips'
105,300 employees to Motorola Solutions' 15,000 employees.

[1] BenQ Mobile ("BenQ-Siemens") went bust; Gigaset still manufactures DECT
phones in Bocholt, Germany, as Europe's market leader; Unify (formerly Siemens
Enterprise Communications) is still a major player; Nokia Networks (formerly
Nokia Siemens Networks; formerly Nokia Networks + Siemens Networks) is now the
backbone of Nokia.

~~~
raverbashing
I know all of that, I'd like to go into more detail about how I interacted
with these companies but I don't like to go into specifics about my identity
here

> Siemens (energy, industry, mobility, healthcare technology) is alive and
> well

> Philips (...) still an important player on the lightning and healthcare
> technology markets

What it's common about those items is that they rely less on software (still,
there are things like SCADA, etc) and have higher margins (B2B)

------
Grazester
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.

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.

------
buggyend
I am from India, & I still remember back in 1998, my uncle had a motorola
pager [http://goo.gl/Ziuy34](http://goo.gl/Ziuy34). 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. :)

Call the operator;say your message;& wait for the person to call you.

------
LargeCompanies
In April 2013 Motorola invited my startup partner and I out to demo our new
audio sync across multiple devices technology.

They talked about buying us potentially and we were crazy excited...

[http://ryanspahn.com/my-google-NDA-experience.html](http://ryanspahn.com/my-
google-NDA-experience.html)

------
nvarsj
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.

------
Twirrim
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.

Interesting story though :)

~~~
colindean
It's almost unreadable on my 21:9 screen. So much at the bottom is cut off.

------
partiallogic
Published from the future!

------
dempseye
Sorry, can't get past the weird scrolling.

------
curiousjorge
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.

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.

It's kind unfair and harsh that the industry's early innovators could fall so
quickly, as such is the case for Nokia.

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.

~~~
haddr
The Moto G smartphone is probably the best android you can get at the price
they sell it. It is really sometimes better than other android phones that are
priced double.

~~~
rhaps0dy
I really don't know how it has such good value, did they sell it at a loss?

The only problem I've found on it is its lack of a gyroscope, and subsequent
lack of ability to use the Cardboard.

~~~
sliverstorm
They cut all the right corners, did minimal custom software, and still built
it as a quality piece of hardware. Instead of keeping all the features but
sacrificing quality

------
JeremyBanks
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.)

~~~
davnicwil
Same here, totally broken on Chrome 43.0.2357.130 (Mac).

Also, it says it was published July 13th 2015 - that's 2 days from now :-)

~~~
nsgf
Delete div node with id "blackScreen". (Right click -> Inspect Element)

~~~
davnicwil
That didn't fix it (still same non-scrolling issue as parent).

However this fixes the second problem ;-)

Array.prototype.slice.call(document.getElementsByClassName("footerText")).forEach(function(e)
{ e.innerHTML = 'Published on July 11, 2015.'; })

------
marvel_boy
No company can survive third generation. Is a fact of life.

~~~
asmithmd1
Yuengling beer is operated by the 5th generation and the 6th is being groomed
to run it:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuengling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuengling)

A possible key to the family's longevity is that each successive generation
buys the business from the previous generation and it is not gifted to them.

