Free Republic

Motorola eyes breakup of company to gain telecom 'leadership' Thu Jan 31, 5:25 PM ET Motorola said Thursday it is studying a possible breakup of the company in an effort "to recapture global market leadership" in the mobile phone market, and to enhance shareholder value. The struggling company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, said it is "exploring the structural and strategic realignment of its businesses." This may include the separation of its Mobile Devices division from its other businesses "in order to permit each business to grow and better serve its customers," the company said in a statement. Motorola, once the...

Firestone. American Motors. Texaco. Pan Am. Worldcom. At one point or another these large American companies were at the top of their industries. Pan Am was the leading global airline for decades. All are gone. Some were sold off. Others went bankrupt. Who could have predicted it? There are several iconic US companies that may well not exist at the end of 2008. Some may not even make it halfway through the year. Not all will go out of business. Some may simply be auctioned off in pieces. Others may be bought. These companies will not exist in their current...

Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain? Earlier this year Gore experienced a notable public relations debacle. The Tennessee Center for...

BEIJING: Mobile phone batteries that exploded in flames during tests by officials in southern China were counterfeit, spokeswomen for Nokia and Motorola said Saturday. The Guangdong Industrial and Commercial Administration's Web site said four batteries exploded while being recharged during quality tests, which flunked 40 percent of mobile phone batteries and 80 percent of chargers. The tests also found that of 40 locally purchased batteries, 15 had a smaller capacity that labeled, sometimes by as much as half. Motorola spokeswoman Mary Lamb told The Associated Press that Motorola immediately sent a team to Guangdong province and found that the tests...

Report: Welder in western China killed by exploding phone battery AP - Wednesday, July 4 BEIJING - A welder in western China was killed when a mobile phone battery exploded in his chest pocket, state media said Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT The official Xinhua News Agency said that welder, Xiao Jinpeng, died on June 19 while working at the Yingpan Iron Ore Dressing Plant in Gansu's Jinta county. Xinhua quoted Bai Shixiong, an official with the county public security bureau, as saying a Motorola cell phone in Xiao's chest pocket suddenly exploded, and he died at a local hospital after emergency treatment...

In an effort to cut costs and boost margins, Motorola will reportedly use its Linux/Java based mobile phone operating system across "all mid- and high-tier devices." The beleaguered communications company will fall $1 billion short of analyst expectations this quarter, due to a slump in its mobile phone business.

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. - Consumers needing a cell phone or accessories on the run have a new option now that Motorola Inc. has rolled out a series of what the company calls "robotic stores." The vending machinelike stores unveiled Wednesday will carry about 30 products, initially including 12 phones and 18 accessories, said Bob Many, Motorola's director of automated retailing. The "Instantmoto" will go into 20 malls and airports nationwide as part of a pilot program. Chicago has three outlets operating, including one in the Macy's store downtown. The program will be expanded depending on its success, Many said. Phone customers...

How to Install an Internal Modem on system Installing an internal modem is not an easy task. You have to open the computer to install modem cards. Given steps applies to all computer system. Shut down the computer and disconnect all peripheral devices from the computer, then remove the computer's cover. Find a slot that matches the pins. PCI modems have fewer pins and fit into a smaller slot than ISA modems. Put new modem into that slot if it will physically fit. First unscrew the metal plate on the slot holder on the back panel, and insert the modem...

Danica Patrick's new car got a grand introduction on Tuesday. She took it on a short ride through the Chicago streets before officially unveiling the No. 7 Motorola she will drive for Andretti Green Racing next season. ``It's black, it's sort of sleek, it looks fast,'' Patrick said. And it resembles a batmobile. She hopes it performs like one, too. Patrick rode to stardom in 2005 when she finished fourth at the Indianapolis 500 and was the IRL rookie of the year. But this year was difficult. Teammate Paul Dana died after crashing during a warm-up for the season-opener at...

If you’re not living underneath a rock you probably know about the escalating war in Israel and Lebanon. I am very sympathetic to the innocent people who are affected by this war. I prefer not to turn this into a war discussion, I am just talking about the potential effects that it has on our industry. Over the years Israel has been on the cutting edge of research and development in various advanced technologies. Israel boasts many thousands of high technology companies in a wide range of fields such as telecommunications, software, semiconductors, biotech, and medical electronics. Many of the...

Russia is growing, and so are the shadows that are cast over the business proceedings there. The bureaucracy is still extremely burdensome and growing. And laws are a matter of convenience and seemingly circumvented at will -- or at least when you have the right connections. Corruption and middlemen are a matter of course, and bribes are expected and given. Confiscation of private goods -- i.e., Motorola's ongoing fiasco -- and resale for profit is old news. Legitimate dealings are called smuggling. And smuggling is called smuggling. Russian law allows confiscated material in criminal investigations to be sold or destroyed...

www.motorola.com and www.nokia.com are going head-to-head in the southern city of Madras, India. But, Nokia is throwing the bigger punches. Nokia announced plans to build a $150-million plant near Madras. Motorola countered with a plan to invest $100 million in a plant of its own. Where do these companies get all of this money? $150 mill, $100 mil, and yesterday Yahoo put up $60 mil to invest in South Korea. Could someone please drop a million near me, or invest in me? India is one of the fastest growing handset markets. Gee, I wonder what country is number one. Nokia...

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. has won backing from major cellular networks for a new generation of phones designed to transform mobile e-mail from executive accessory to standard issue for the corporate rank-and-file. The partnerships, with operators including Vodafone and Cingular, to be announced Monday at a mobile industry gathering in Spain, could spell more trouble for the embattled Blackberry and other niche e-mail technologies, analysts say. Unlike the Blackberry and its peers, phones running Microsoft's latest Windows Mobile operating system can receive e-mails "pushed" directly from servers that handle a company's messaging -- without the need for a...

PHONE GIANT Motorola has dumped Apple’s iTunes, and a lot of its technical problems, from its ROKR E2 phone.

Cingular Wireless and Motorola (MOT) Thursday are expected to unveil an always-on data service that will send scrolling text and images to the bottom of cell phone screens. Cingular, operated by SBC Communications (SBC) and BellSouth, (BLS) will sell the service under the Live Ticker name. The feature will work with a new phone from Motorola. The move is part of a broader upgrade of Cingular's wireless portal — the screen that guides mobile phone users to entertainment and products. The company aims to make mobile Web browsing easier and quicker, and boost its revenue in the process. The Live...

Motorola's chief executive has admitted that the company may have got it wrong with the recently released, iTunes-compatible ROKR phone. Ed Zander was responding to news that the number of people returning the phone is six times higher than normal according to American Technology Report. 'We got off to a little bit of a rough start,' Zander said. 'People were looking for an iPod and that's not what it is. We may have missed the marketing message there.' He acknowledged that Motorola has failed to explain that the phone stores fewer songs than even the smallest iPod, but sells for...

Apple Computer's newest MP3 player, the iPod nano, is receiving rave reviews and analysts believe the device will solidify Apple's dominance in the competitive MP3 player market for at least another year. However, not everyone praises the device -- Motorola CEO Ed Zander had some harsh words for the nano in a recent interview. "Screw the nano," said Zander. "What the hell does the nano do? Who listens to 1,000 songs? People are going to want devices that do more than just play music, something that can be seen in many other countries with more advanced mobile phone networks and...

O.K. I'll make an attempt to tell what's going on down here right now. It's hard to do for several reasons. First, because there is so much , it's hard to talk about. Let's try to focus on the positive. You're right to be sick about New Orleans. They've turned into a bunch of animals over there. The idiots are shooting at the people who are trying to help them???? I think for the most part it's due to the frustration caused by the lack of response by their State Government....I mean, an SOS call? Give me a break. Everybody...

Apple and Motorola Inc. are expected to team up with Cingular Wireless LLC next week to introduce an iTunes mobile phone that can store and play digital music. The companies are likely to announce the long-awaited device on Sept. 7, according to telecommunications analyst Roger Entner of Ovum Ltd., as well as published reports. Apple has said it would make a major product announcement at an event in San Francisco that day. Representatives of Apple, Motorola and Cingular all declined to comment. The phone most likely will have storage capacity similar to the iPod Shuffle, which is available with as...

NEW DELHI: Global mobile equipment maker Motorola today said it will consider manufacturing in India to comply with the eligibility criteria of deals with state-run carriers like BSNL and MTNL but remained non-committal on any immediate plan in this regard. "We are not closed to it..we will consider manufacturing here. We will do everything to comply with the tender conditions of the PSU telecom carriers ... but that will be when and in what shape, size and form, I can't say at this point of time. Our focus is to gain siginficant market share here and attain a critical mass",...

Move over XM and Sirius. A new technology allows Internet radio to be heard through a car stereo system. "iRadio," designed by Motorola, uses a specially designed cell phone as an intermediary between the car radio and a personal computer. Subscribers will choose six Internet radio channels and download them from a computer into the phone, the Chicago Tribune reports. When iRadio is on, six buttons on the car radio will correspond to the six Internet channels loaded into the phone. It will also be accessible for listening on phones equipped to handle the new technology. The service is now...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. mobile service, is considering selling a Motorola Inc. cell phone that can play music using Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes music service, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. "Motorola and Apple have been talking to Cingular about it using the iTunes phone," according to one of the sources, who asked not to be named. RBC Capital analyst Mark Sue said in a recent research note that Apple and Cingular were working out final details on revenue sharing. Cingular spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock and Apple representative Natalie Kerris declined comment. Apple...

OK, I'll just come right out and say it: I have it on good authority that Motorola and Apple are about to release the first cell phone to run iTunes, marking a massive milestone in the race to sell digital music on the cell phone platform. The announcement could come as early as tonight, at the opening night of the CeBIT conference in Hannover, Germany. The other possibility is that the two partners will spring it on us at the CTIA conference, which starts this Sunday (March 13).

Hi... I'm sure there are a lot of outdoorsmen and women on FR... I'm looking to get some of those 2 way radios that are all over the place these days. However its hard to get decent reviews on shopping websites etc... I dont expect any of these radios to have the range they claim, even over open land or water. Beyond that, has anyone used some of these and have opinions on what is good or bad? thanks

...Beginning today, Amazon plans to feature one original short film each week in a prominent spot on its home page for the next five weeks -- all commissioned by Amazon and available for free downloading by the site's visitors. The four-to-seven minute movies will star a variety of Hollywood actors in fictional stories fashioned loosely around a theme Amazon describes as "karmic balance;" characters, in essence, learn valuable life lessons.... Instead of a traditional advertising hard sell, the movies mark the escalation of an effort by Amazon to provide unique online content free of charge to its customers, some of...

Sales surge helps company more than triple profit; Austin unit makes $107M FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS Wednesday, April 21, 2004 CHICAGO -- Motorola Inc. more than tripled its first-quarter profit as new products boosted its flagship cell phone business and helped company revenue soar 42 percent higher than a year earlier. The Schaumburg, Ill.-based company's profit for the three months that ended April 3 were $609 million, or 25 cents a share, on $8.6 billion in revenue. The company's first-quarter net income was $169 million, or 7 cents a share, on $6.04 billion in revenue for the same period...

A record number of cellular phones were sold last year by manufacturers, primarily due to people replacing their handsets with newer models and increased sales in emerging markets, a market research firm said. Worldwide shipments totaled 520 million units in 2003, a 20.5 percent increase over 2002 sales, Gartner Inc. said. Sales were so good, manufacturers struggled to meet demand. "This unprecedented demand is set to continue in 2004 with the first quarter already looking strong," Gartner analyst Ben Wood said in a statement. "We've increased our market estimate for 2004 to 580 million units." Nokia continued to hold the...

Smartphone wars over, Symbian and MS both lost? By John Lettice in Cannes Posted: 01/03/2004 at 18:36 GMT 3GSM Events of the past few weeks have kind of undermined images of Symbian as the victor in the smartphone wars. Depending on how you look at it, last week at 3GSM the company was either staggering about with a dagger in its back, or David Levin was pointing a gun at his head and telling any shareholder who'd listen, "Buy more shares or the puppy gets it." Maybe a bit of both, but does it matter who wins/won? It's beginning to...

China firms buy $2.3B worth of U.S. high technology Motorola and Lucent win large telecommunications deals at trade seminar Major players in China's IT and telecommunication industries signed deals Tuesday to buy equipment from U.S. vendors worth a total of around $2.3 billion, the companies said. The deals were signed at a seminar on telecommunications and IT trade in Washington. Motorola Inc. won two large mobile telephony deals: a $556 million contract with China United Telecommunication Corp. (China Unicom) to expand its CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) mobile networks in Beijing and 12 other provinces; and a $510 million contract...

Motorola, US-based mobile phone manufacturer, and several other companies will on Tuesday sign more than $2bn in contracts to supply equipment to China's largest telephone and personal computer companies. The contracts are due to be formally announced in Washington, according to sources close to the deals. The contract announcements come just one month after Wen Jiabao, Chinese Premier visited the US and President Bush warned Taiwan against changing the status quo with the mainland. The deals could also signal a change in China's attitude towards US telecommunications equipment makers. In the past US companies have complained of slow liberalisation in...

U.S. losing its connection Telecommunications giant Motorola closes Midwest plant, flourishes in China By RICK ROMELL and JOHN SCHMID rromell@journalsentinal Posted: Dec. 29, 2003 Third of a four-part series: Made in China Nine years ago, Wisconsin and Illinois dueled for an economic development plum: a huge factory, distribution and office center to produce wireless phones for high-flying Motorola Inc. With thousands of jobs at stake, the two states fought hard for it. Made in China Photo/Gary Porter A hundred thousand semitrailer-sized containers, loaded with goods, wait for departure from Yantian International Ltd., the biggest shipping port in Shenzhen, China. The...

Struggling Austin semiconductor section will become its own public company Motorola Inc. soon will send its semiconductor business out into the world as a separate company with new marching orders: Sink or swim. Management of the Schaumburg, Ill.-based communications conglomerate announced early Monday that it will spin off its financially struggling semiconductor operations in a stock offering that should be completed next year. If successful, it would create the Austin area's second-largest public company behind Dell Inc. "We're pretty pumped about it,' said Ray Burgess, the director of strategy for Motorola's semiconductor business, which begain in Phoenix in 1949. So...

Japan has visions of Asian alternative to Windows OS http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20030901a3.htm Japan hopes to develop new computer software in cooperation with China and South Korea to make Asian economies less dependent on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, government officials said Sunday. The software would be built into computer servers and Internet-enabled appliances, such as next-generation cell phones, the officials said. Computer worms have been attacking Windows recently, prompting government offices and major companies to reconsider their heavy dependence on the operating system. Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma will propose the plan to his Chinese and South Korean counterparts...

<p>Cem Uzan, head of Turkey's Youth Party, had a $6.3 million condo at 515 Park Ave. seized.</p> <p>A federal judge yesterday ordered a fabulously wealthy Turkish family to fork over $4 billion to Motorola for ensnaring the communications giant in what he called a web of "lies, threats and chicanery." And if members of the family set foot in the United States, Judge Jed Rakoff wants five of them arrested for pulling off the super-sized scam.</p>

Turkish family to appeal, rejects U.S. jurisdiction WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- The owners of a Turkish wireless phone carrier said Thursday that they will appeal a decision by a U.S. judge ordering them to pay Motorola $4.26 billion to settle fraud charges arising from unpaid loans.The ruling strikes a blow against the prominent Uzan clan, one of the wealthiest and most politically connected families in Turkey. They run Telsim, the country's second largest wireless phone company.Federal Judge Ned Rakoff also ordered that the five family members named in the suit to be arrested if they enter the United States.In a strongly...

From atomic-scale "carbon nanotubes," Motorola Inc. has sprouted a new technology that will make it possible for the first time for manufacturers to easily grow and inexpensively produce the material to make large-scale TV and computer display tubes, the Schaumburg technology company announced Tuesday. In addition to its use in producing 60-inch and larger displays at a retail price potentially below $1,000--a fraction of the current cost for plasma displays--the new Motorola process will have a variety of other applications, researchers said. It could be used in devices to detect and eradicate infectious microbes, such as that causing the...

DEBLIN, Poland, Apr 18, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Poland on Friday signed a deal to buy 48 U.S.-made F-16 jet fighters for US$3.5 billion, the biggest defense contract by a former Soviet bloc country since the end of the Cold War. Along with the purchase of planes from Lockheed Martin Corp., Polish and U.S. officials concluded an agreement for U.S. investment in Poland, business deals with Polish manufacturers and transfer of technology that the government valued at a minimum of US$7.5 billion. With its complexity, scope and promise of economic benefits for the former communist nation, the package...

Compensation for Motorola's top executive doubled last year even though the company recorded a net loss for the second year in a row. Chief Executive Officer Christopher Galvin took home a bonus of $1.5 million as well as a salary of more than $1.2 million last year, according to the company's proxy statement released Friday. Yet the Schaumburg-based cell phone maker recorded a net loss of $2.5 billion, or $1.09 per share, last year and its stock fell 42 percent.

EXCERPT: The tale of how Motorola Inc. fell victim to one of history's bigger financial frauds--an alleged $2.5 billion swindle by a powerful Turkish family--is set to unfold in painful detail in a federal courtroom this week. Yet even a clear legal victory in its lawsuit wouldn't spare Motorola the embarrassing question of how it came to lend more than $1.8 billion to a family that it now alleges has a history of defrauding investors and using Turkish courts to elude prosecution. The story of Motorola's massive losses--they were written off months ago--to the billionaire Uzan family is a cautionary...

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Six University of Maryland students have admitted cheating on an accounting exam by using their cell phones to receive text messages with the answers, the school said Thursday. Another six students were implicated in the case. The scheme worked this way: Test-takers brought their cell phones into the exam with them. They used the phones to contact friends outside the classroom

Lobbyists Paid for Bush Official's Party Days Before Going to Bat for Wireless Cos., Bush Administration Official Was Feted by Lobbyists The Associated Press This is a copy of an invitation to a party in honor of Assistant Commerce Secretary Nancy Victory, the Bush administration's point person for telecommunications policy. Victory allowed wireless phone company lobbyists to help pay for a private reception at her home, and then 10 days later urged a policy change that benefited their industry, according to documents and interviews. (AP Photo) WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 — Just days before going to bat for the wireless industry,...

“No business could survive in a free market by not cutting those relatively high-paying but now silly jobs created by many tech companies before the Silicon Valley dot-com bombs went off in 2000. However I have to wonder why it has taken two years and these CEOs still haven’t gotten rid of all that dead wood in their companies. Two years on the profit/loss rollercoaster and the CEOs are still pointing fingers at their rank and file workers as the problem? Nothing is more disheartening to hear than some clueless tech CEO spin on a cable news channel’s financial segment...

<p>Apple Computer is looking toward a 64-bit future for the Mac -- courtesy of PowerPC partner IBM.</p> <p>According to sources, IBM Microelectronics, a division of IBM, is working with Apple on a 64-bit PowerPC processor for use in the latter's high-end desktops and servers.</p>

After years of upping the technological ante, suppliers of micro fuel cells may finally be preparing to make a bid for the $10 billion-a-year rechargeable-battery market. Their efforts reached a high-water mark this past week, as MTI MicroFuel Cells Inc. (Albany, N.Y.) unveiled a prototype fuel cell that's small enough to ride piggyback on a cell phone, while offering greater charging potential than a lithium ion battery. The technology, said to be manufacturable because it employs no pumps or water recirculation techniques, could be in production as early as 2004, the company said. MTI's 90-cubic-centimeter device, reportedly the smallest direct-methanol...

Motorola seen promoting homosexuality 'Homophobia' workshops, other activism creating tension in workplace Posted: August 2, 2002 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Diana Lynne © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com "Homophobia" workshops, homosexual sex education courses and e-mail recruitment for "gay"-pride parades are creating tension among employees at Motorola, according to an engineer. The Motorola engineer, who prefers not to be named, told WorldNetDaily there is a "quiet anger" among many non-homosexual employees who support the traditional definition of the family over the homosexual activism supported by corporate management "under the guise of ... diversity." The activism entails use of the corporate e-mail system, bulletin...

Might Apple ditch PowerPC for Satanic chips? Citizen Smith Resolution wavering? By Tony Smith: Monday 22 July 2002, 10:17 IS APPLE SERIOUSLY thinking about switching processor platforms? There's been no end of speculative answers to that question over the past few years, but Apple itself has been resolute on the point: no we're not. That stance may have changed, if comments made by CEO Steve Jobs at the company's quarterly earnings confab. Asked whether Apple is now mooting a move to x86 chips, Jobs noted that that couldn't happen until the vast majority of its users and - more importantly...

Motorola Posts Largest Net Loss Ever By Ben Klayman and Yukari Iwatani CHICAGO (Reuters) - Motorola Inc. MOT.N on Tuesday posted its biggest net loss in company history, but before its restructuring charge the world's second-largest mobile telephone maker topped analysts' expectations. Including a previously disclosed $3.4 billion pretax restructuring charge, or $2.4 billion after taxes, Motorola's net loss in the second quarter was $2.3 billion, or $1.02 a share, compared with a net loss last year of $759 million, or 35 cents a share. The restructuring charge was largely for job cuts and asset write-downs. Motorola officials repeated that...

Nokia faces much bigger challengers than the Redmond Monster By Tony Dennis: Wednesday 17 July 2002, 14:28 THAT OLD CHESTNUT that Nokia is frightened by Bill Gates' shadow was trotted out again in today's Financial Times. The claim is that Microsoft will mutate the handset market so that it resembles the PC industry where margins on hardware are minute while software margins stay high. Apparently there's a danger that Microsoft could help to commoditise the handset market. Eh? Global handset sales are already around 400 million units compared to 120 million at most for PC sales. Which is the commodity?...

Beijing Developing Electronic Chains to Enslave Its People For nearly a thousand years the Great Wall of China protected the Asian empire from foreign invasion. Today, red China is installing a great "firewall," hoping to stem the tide of foreign ideas from invading the authoritarian one-party state. Despite claims to be an open society, China has an extraordinary fear of free information. For example, when President George Bush recently visited the Shanghai economic conference inside China, the communist government removed blocks on the Web sites of several U.S. news services. Immediately after President Bush left Shanghai, the paranoid red forces...