Motorola Woes
What's the current zeitgeist on Motorola these days? Whatever it is, it's not pretty. We already know that profits are down, that MotoCEO Ed Zander has already admitted that they need to do better, and even that there's a rumor floating about that Ericsson wants to buy Motorola. Nevertheless, Zander's feeling feisty. Mike points out that Zander is sick and tired of hearing about the iPhone:
How do you deal with [the iPhone]?" Zander was asked at the Software 2007 conference in Santa Clara, California. Zander quickly retorted, "How do they deal with us?"
Why the fightin' words? Maybe it's just that he just fought off a mini-coup led by investor Carl Icahn. Maybe he really believes that "micro-applications" will save them:
A movement is afoot within the software industry to create micro-applications, such as customer relationship management software, forecasting systems and revenue tracking software, and load them onto these handheld devices, Zander said.[...] But whether the smart phone will one day become just a platform for software stacks has yet to be seen, he noted.
More likely, though, is that he feels pretty confident that the MotoQ9h should help a bit, as should this mysterious "movie phone" that Motorola is going to announce next week that will be able to handle full 30 fps video.
One thing's clear, though, the vultures are circling Motorola. They'd best do something big and soon before investors give up on them completely. All of which is funny because the "zeitgeist" on Motorola just a couple of months ago was they were going to snap up Palm. Maybe that's the bold move they need to make?
