RAZR Burn

October 29, 2008 at 5:22 am PT

The arduous task of reversing the ongoing collapse of Motorola’s post-Razr phone business will begin with thousands of layoffs and a big bet on Google’s Android mobile operating system.

Sanjay Jha, Motorola’s new co-chief executive and head of mobile devices, is expected to announce a major overhaul of the company’s cellphone division when it reports earnings Thursday. And sources close to the company say it will include a new round of job cuts and the jettisoning of four software platforms. This will leave Motorola with three supported platforms: Windows Mobile for high end smartphones, Android for midtier consumer devices and Motorola’s own P2K for low-end phones.

For Motorola (MOT), whose current device lineup includes too few popular phones running on too many different operating systems–six, to be exact–this winnowing down of supported platforms is a wise move. But it’s not going to do much to help the company hang on to its fast-declining market share position. To achieve that, Motorola needs a hit phone–or even a popular one. Other than the $2,000 Aura the company just introduced in the middle of a recession, that is.

Tagged with: Android, Google, John Paczkowski, Microsoft, Motorola, P2K, Windows Mobile

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http://blog.macb.net Mac Beach

Continuation of yesterdays hardware pricing…

I just purchased a $40 Motorola Tracfone at a retail store to replace my older Nokia soap bar. It looks functionally the same as the Razr phones still listed by Sprint at between $300 and $400. I think the differences are more about what features are exposed by the software (and carrier) than hardware.

I hope that by February when my Sprint contract runs out there are at least a couple of Androids to choose from and also hopefully a selection of carriers.

Maybe I’ll finally enter the twenty first century.
http://allthingsd.com/ Eric Welch

Motorola has had such badly written software, I would never, ever buy one of their jokes they call phones ever again.

Their phone division head last year made an interesting comment in answer to a question about how they would compete with the iPhone, “We’re going to be boringly predictable.”

Nothing like guaranteeing success with so little effort!