Motorola Drama

Things have been going from bad to worse for Motorola lately. CEO Ed Zander “quit” in November, sales are way down (despite a tiny bright spot from the Q9), and now this past week / weekend all sorts of strange goings-on.

First, on Thursday, Motorola announced that is was thinking about spinning off its handset business entirely.

The company's alternatives may include the separation of Mobile Devices from its other businesses in order to permit each business to grow and better serve its customers.

Clearly making an announcement like this is a sign of... of what, exactly? “Hey, guys, what would you think if we did this?” It's like they're just trying to poke their stock price with a pointy stick to see if it really is dead or just sleeping. Apparently the pointy stick didn't do anything, because the very next day they announced that Zander's replacement, CEO Greg Brown¹, was “taking direct control” of the handset business.

...As if all that wasn't enough, there has been Carl Icahn to contend with. See, back in May Icahn was so unhappy with Moto that he tried to take over the company, angry-investor-mob-style, though Moto fought him off. Guess what, folks, heeee's baaaack! Icahn intends to try his earlier gambit again - stacking the board with new directors.

Buckle up, everybody, the MotoCoaster is just getting started.

¹: No, not that Greg Brown, but wouldn't it surreally awesome if it were?