Motorola Broadband review

Nokia Looks Like a Better Investment Than Motorola

2007-02-08T02:30:00.000-08:00

WITH NEW ENTRANTS, new victors and new losers, 2007 is already proving to be an interesting year when it comes to the battle of the handset makers. Nokia (NOK) turned in some impressive quarterly results despite slumping phone prices. Corporate raider Carl Icahn is stirring up the beehive at Motorola (MOT) and Steve Jobs is getting in on the act with the latest addition to the Apple (AAPL) family, the iPhone. For investors, cutting through all of the noise in this marketplace has become much more difficult. According to independent research firm ABI Research, mobile handset makers shipped nearly one billion handsets in 2006, up 23% from 2005. For 2007, A.G. Edwards analyst David Wong expects growth in the handset market to be in the 15% to 20% range. There are now some 2.5 billion mobile phone subscribers — that's roughly one out of every three people on the planet.

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Review: Motorola SLVR L7c multimedia candy bar

2007-02-06T02:30:00.000-08:00

Sprint's rendition of the SLVR features EV-DO for streaming video and Bluetooth in a thin form. Does 3G networking keep it up to speed, or should you pass it by? Design The Motorola SLVR L7c could best be described as a candy-bar version of the RAZR. It bears the RAZR's etched metal keypad, as well as the matte black aluminum shell of the black RAZR model. Perhaps when the original SLVR L7 was released a year ago it was a comparably thin candy bar, but after Samsung's recent onslaught of emaciated phones, the SLVR feels thick and outdated. The 1.9-inch screen is plenty roomy, though resolution is a bit low and the color depth -- 65,000 colors, down from 262,000 on the original SLVR L7 -- hurts the overall pop of the screen. The screen also happens to be an oil magnet, especially when held it against our cheek during calls.

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Icahn details plan for Motorola

2007-02-02T02:29:00.000-08:00

While Carl Icahn's announcement of a 1.4% stake in Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT) and his request for a board seat sent shockwaves through Motorola's corporate offices, his plans for Motorola appear to be less ambitious than some may have thought. According the Financial Times, Icahn is requesting one seat on the board of directors (with no ability to gain more seats) and a large share buyback. He has said nothing about changes in management or a break-up of the company. However, before they get too cozy, Motorola executives would do well to look to Icahn's battle for the break-up of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX), which he eventually dropped. Icahn began that battle with a tiny stake and mild suggestions for change (similar to what he's done at Motorola) but rapidly expanded his position and sought larger changes.

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Motorola MOTORAZR V3xx 3G Phone Review

2007-01-31T02:33:00.000-08:00

Here we go, then. No sooner are we used to HSDPA offering data speeds of 1.8Mbps than along comes a handset capable of supporting the next step on the HSDPA ladder, 3.6Mbps. Motorola’s MOTORAZR V3xx is currently available on the 3 network, and is the company’s first handset to sport this newly beefed up 3G speed-merchant flavour of HSDPA. Don’t get too excited too quickly about this, though. Three’s marketing people tell us that the network will be offering HSDPA some time this year, and hopefully in the first half of the year, but they aren’t being any more specific than that. In the mean time, standard 3G is what you’ll get which is fast, but not super-duper, rival-your-home-broadband-speed fast. Now, once you get over all the hoop-la hooray of the fact that this phone may be able to connect to the Internet at a speed faster than your home computer and calm down a bit, you might start to see that there is a whole lot about the MOTORAZR V3xx that is nice, and some more that is a way behind what this leading light feature might lead you to desire from a handset.

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Motorola teams up with Ferrari for MotoRAZR MAXX V6

2007-01-29T02:31:00.000-08:00

Although it's passing the checkered flag quite a few laps later than the McLaren-branded handsets we've seen of late, Ferrari has utilized that long-standing partnership with Motorola to kick out a flashy limited edition MotoRAZR MAXX, dubbed the V6 Ferrari. Although it's not like Ferrari to stop with just six cylinders, this handset sports a sleek, black finish, an unmistakable yellow Ferrari logo, two-megapixel camera, VGA webcam for video telephony, 50MB of internal memory, microSD expansion slot, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, USB 2.0 connectivity, and "OTA PC syncing" to boot. Additionally, you'll find HSDPA, EDGE, and GPRS options, and for that extra luxurious touch, you'll hear an F1 "roar" each time you switch the device on, images of the Ferrari F430 engine on the mini external display, and a Ferrari automobile on the internal display.

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Motorola unveils low budget handset for Sri Lankan market

2007-01-23T02:34:00.000-08:00

Motorola Inc plans to introduce a low budget handset next month to popularize the use of cellular phones among less affluent people, officials said Monday. Sri Lankans can pick up a MotoFone F3 at 5,000 rupees, which comes equipped with 8 hour talk time and two-week standby time, the world's second largest mobile phone operator told reporters. The F3 boasts number of features such as a high quality speaker that is designed to be clear and loud, a display using a concept call electronic paper that consumes less power and clearer. "The phone has voice prompts," Robert Gagnon Managing Director Motorola's Mobile Devices in Emerging Markets said. A voice prompt makes it easier for first-time users to navigate, place a call and retrieve messages, he explained.

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Motorola to cut 3500 jobs and save $400m

2007-01-21T02:33:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK: Motorola Inc said on Friday it plans to cut 3,500 jobs and save $400 million, aiming to return its operating margin to a double-digit percentage level in the second half of 2007. Shares in Motorola, the worlds second-biggest mobile phone maker, rose 3 percent after executives outlined the plan and said 2007 revenue estimates could beat Wall Street estimates. Investors were happy that Motorola saw recovery in sight, after it reported earlier on Friday a 48 percent drop in fourth quarter profit, hurt by lower phone prices. But despite the share rise, many analysts said they would hold their applause until they see Motorolas new products. I think youre seeing a little relief that things arent getting worse, that they think they can fix it, said Benjamin Halliburton, chief investment officer of Tradition Capital Management, which has 220,000 Motorola shares and 281,000 shares of Nokia among its $450 million of assets.

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Motorola Foundation Funds Chinese Connections Program

2007-01-19T02:38:00.000-08:00

The Motorola (MOT) Foundation has announced a grant to the Chicago Public Schools Chinese Connections Program that will fund opportunities for Chicago students to study abroad in China. The Chinese Connections Program, which provides Chinese language instruction in 28 schools citywide, is the largest Chinese language program in the United States, with 6,000 students studying Chinese language and culture in grades K-12. The Motorola grant will extend learning beyond the classroom, allowing students to apply their language skills in a cultural immersion program. These "Motorola Scholars" will travel to China for two weeks –attending classes, visiting Chinese businesses like Motorola's China headquarters and experiencing cultural landmarks. "The Chinese Language Program unites Motorola's support for Chicago Public Schools with our long-established presence in China as an employer and member of the community," said Eileen Sweeney, director of the Motorola Foundation.

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Motorola Completes Acquisition of Symbol Technologies, retires ...

2007-01-17T02:42:00.000-08:00

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. - Motorola, Inc. announced at last weeks Promat show in Chicago that it has completed its acquisition of Symbol Technologies, Inc. The transaction has a total equity value of approximately $3.9 billion on a fully-diluted basis. We spoke to Chief Marketing Officer Alan Marcus, formerly of Symbol, who said Were Motorola now, one company. There will be no Symbol technologies. Well miss it, he said of the Symbol identity, in the sense that its been around a long time. But at the same time were excited at the breadth of the portfolio, both inside the four walls and outside. Its a great match. By breadth of portfolio, Marcus refers to Motorolas consumer market and Symbols corporate market. Will Symbol technology make its way into consumer product? That kind of thing may happen in the future, said Marcus, but for now, the product lines are distinct.

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Motorola expands Mobinil GSM network

2007-01-15T02:41:00.000-08:00

Motorola has announced the completion of a GSM network expansion project with long-standing customer Mobinil, which enabled Mobinil to extend its coverage in Cairo, Delta, Alexandria and North Coast regions and add three million subscribers nationwide in 2006.The projects successful completion was announced at the Motorola Future Technology Seminar (FTS), which is being held in Cairo from 10 to 11 January 2007. The project also supported Mobinils network enhancements, which enabled the company to offer even higher quality of service to its growing customer base. Motorola delivered its Reach GSM solutions, along with comprehensive services including network optimization and ongoing support. The expansion extended Mobinils network into new, remote areas and provided better network performance in high population density areas, allowing Mobinil to add new subscribers quickly and efficiently.

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Motorola completes purchase of Symbol - a symbol of enterprise ...

2007-01-13T02:31:00.000-08:00

Symbol is a well known (probably the best) maker of mobile devices for professional and enterprise applications - some of them powered by proprietary operating systems but most of them powered by Windows CE or Windows Mobile - and also Symbol's server solutions are based on Microsoft technologies... so this purchase of Symbol by Motorola further extends Motorola's commitment to Microsoft powered mobility solutions! More information from Symbol follows. * * * * * Motorola Completes Acquisition of Symbol Technologies Transaction Positions Motorola as a Global Leader in Enterprise Mobility Enhances Motorolas Technology Leadership and Advances the Companys Vision of Seamless Mobility Motorola, Inc.

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Motorola Launches Latest Innovations Uniting Music, Media and ...

2007-01-11T02:33:00.000-08:00

Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) is kicking off the new year at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) by demonstrating the “wickedly cool and compelling" solutions that make anytime, anywhere and always-on entertainment and communication a personal reality. Experience Motorola's seamless mobility vision that is redefining the way you can interact with information, objects and others by enabling you to simply and seamlessly link and sync with what matters most in your world – anytime, anywhere, from any space. “Consumers can look to Motorola for what we call cool2, that's cool experiences enabled by cool devices," said Ed Zander, Motorola chairman and chief executive officer. “From the cool device you carry to the TV shows you watch, we no longer are confined to a specific place or device to get what we want.

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Motorola sees media, Internet as '07 priorities

2007-01-09T02:55:00.000-08:00

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Motorola Inc, the world's No. 2 handset maker, unveiled plans on Monday to improve media services on its cellphones via agreements with Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc and said it is developing set top boxes that can send home television to phones. The company, which has been boosted in the last two years by the popularity of its flagship Razr phone design, is hoping to focus this year on offering easier to use media services on cellphones, Chief Executive Ed Zander said. "I think last year was cool devices. This year it's cool experiences," Zander said in an interview late on Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "Making all that technology come out of the box is what we need to do," he said, suggesting that the wireless industry should make multimedia services such as picture swapping and Web surfing much easier for consumers to use.

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Motorola's Stock: Where Now?

2007-01-07T02:38:00.000-08:00

Will Gabrielski submits: Motorola blew yet another quarter Thursday night, proving that secular growth in wireless is not a guarantee of strong results for all handset makers. The company cited its handset business for the reduction in fourth quarter guidance, and I believe Ed Zander will continue to struggle with results amidst slowing handset growth, ASP erosion, new market entrants that compete well against the tired RAZR, and integration risk following a spate of mid and large sized acquisitions. Motorola's problems began in the June quarter, in my opinion. I wrote a very bearish article for my previous employer ahead of the company's second quarter earnings report. Most analysts were forecasting cumulative RAZR shipments to eclipse the 50 million mark in the quarter, but Motorola didn't report its 50 millionth RAZR shipment until after the quarter ended.

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TN to put Dell, Motorola projects on the fast track

2007-01-03T02:43:00.000-08:00

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government, which has clinched six MoUs for total investments of Rs 2,685 crore in the last six months, is giving a special thrust to enable these projects to start production at the earliest. Further, with bulk of these projects coming up in the electronic and telecom manufacturing segments, the government is keen to attract investments in other sectors too. And it hopes to rope in a few over the next few weeks. "Lands have been handed over to all the projects and single-window applications filed. While some of them have already been cleared, others are being processed," official sources in the government told ET. The six MoUs include investment in manufacturing facilities by Dell Computers, Motorola, Samsung and Apollo Tyres among others. The six projects are expected to provide direct and indirect employment to about 53,000 people.

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Motorola Announces its Fastest Processor PMC Module

2006-12-30T02:36:00.000-08:00

Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) today announced availability of the PrPMC6001, the company's fastest Processor PMC module. The PrPMC6001 is designed to enable original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to boost their platform compute and I/O performance while maintaining excellent power and thermal characteristics. The power and versatility of Motorola's PrPMC6001 may enable engineers that are designing leading-edge pervasive computing and embedded network control and signal processing applications, such as flight computers, software defined radio, and command, control and communications systems, to quickly and easily add processing power. Featuring a Freescale MPC7448 PowerPC® G4 architecture processor running at speeds of up to 1.4 GHz, the PrPMC6001 uses an integrated system controller to give the processor high-speed access to up to one GB of external memory with Motorola support and up to 256MB of flash memory.

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Motorola To Acquire Tut Systems, Inc, Expand Portfolio of Next ...

2006-12-26T02:41:00.000-08:00

Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) and Tut Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: TUTS) today announced that the two companies have signed a definitive merger agreement, under which Motorola will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Tut Systems common stock for $1.15 per share in cash. The transaction has a total equity value of approximately $39 million on a fully-diluted basis. Tut Systems provides carrier-class end-to-end digital video encoding, processing and distribution products. Their solutions support MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC video compression, local ad insertion, forward error correction, and real-time conditioning of video and audio. Today, more than 160 service providers worldwide deliver IPTV powered by Tut Systems digital video distribution technology. The integration of Tut Systems' solutions with Motorola's industry-leading digital video delivery solutions will expand Motorola's ability to help service providers deploy advanced video services over IP, ATM, or RF-based network architectures.

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Motorola to lay off 60 staff in Cork

2006-12-17T02:38:00.000-08:00

Motorola will lay off about 60 people at its software and semiconductor plant in Mallow, Co Cork, this week. Motorola will lay off about 60 people at its software and semiconductor plant in Mallow, Co Cork, this week. The company announced a consultation process with staff in September, which will lead to redundancies when it concludes. The lay-offs are in addition to the 30 voluntary redundancies at the company last June following a similar consultation process. It is not clear how many of the latest redundancies will be voluntary, although it is thought that the majority will be. The Cork facility employs more than 400 people, mainly engineers, in software development and R&D. A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment, saying the company was unable to do so until the consultation process was completed.

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Motorola KRZR Available in Fire-Crotch Red

2006-12-15T02:36:00.000-08:00

Motorola will be keeping with their, and everyone elses usual trends of making cellphones available in a rainbow of colors starting with the "Fire" (aka red) Motorola KRZR. This is currently only available in Korea, and no word if this red KRZR has anything to do with the (RED) campaign. It will likely be hitting the states soon. – Travis Hudson Product Page [Via Akihabara] .

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Motorola Q Black debuts on Verizon Wireless

2006-12-13T02:41:00.000-08:00

The Motorola Q Black is the same Q that Verizon Wireless started shipping back in May, but with a sleek new black exterior. Motorola hasn't yet expanded the Q to other network technologies like it was first expected, but rumor has it that Sprint's version (it should also be black) is sitting in the pipeline ready to launch. Features of the Motorola Q include: Windows Mobile 5.0 64MB end-user memory plus miniSD card slot EV-DO high-speed data Bluetooth with A2DP support QVGA display with 65k colors 1.3 megapixel camera Just 11.5mm thick Verizon Wireless is selling the Motorola Q Black for $199.99 after a new two-year contract and $50 mail-in rebate. That's currently the same price as the original silver edition. It's also an online exclusive until mid-January.

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Apple ‘iPhone’ could cause Nokia, Palm, Motorola, and RIM to ...

2006-12-09T02:41:00.000-08:00

"For the better part of the past two years, there have been rumours that Apple Computer Inc. was about to launch an iPhone, a supercool device with all the same sexy features as the company's wildly popular iPod digital music players, but with the added ability to make cellphone calls," Mathew Ingram reports for The Globe and Mail. Ingram reports, "Those rumours have gained substantial traction over the past few weeks. First, a Taiwanese financial newspaper said that a local firm had won a contract to make 12 million music-playing mobile phone handsets for Apple. Then, on Nov. 30, Apple filed a patent application for a combination phone and music player (the company also reportedly owns the domain iphone.org)." "Analyst Gene Munster of brokerage firm Piper Jaffray, who said in September that Apple would likely launch an iPhone within four to six months, wrote in his latest research report that he now expects the launch to come at the annual Macworld Expo in San Francisco on Jan.

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Motorola takes stake

2006-12-07T02:43:00.000-08:00

Motorola Inc. has invested in Mobile Complete Inc., a developer of software that tests and installs programs over the air on mobile phones. Schaumburg-based Motorola didn't disclose the size of its investment or terms. Motorola hopes to drive demand for its mobile phones by investing in developers of products that enhance their features. .

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Motorola Krzr K1m From Sprint

2006-12-03T02:37:00.000-08:00

This version of the Sprint MOTOKRZR K1m from Motorola has a shiny sleek design not found on the gray colored version from Verizon, but has the same basic functionality. The K1m has a thin clam shell design with a 1.3 mega pixel camera and some really cool touch sensitive buttons on the front to run your music playback without having to open up the phone. Buttons like this on the outside of phone are really nice and convenient, but they usually involve some protrusion that looks clunky. This one definitely does not, and gives some common and convenient functionality while keeping a clean look. A somewhat uncommon and nice feature in this phone is a slot for a memory card to move music and image files easily between devices or your PC, as well as adding extra storage.

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Motorola and MTS Sign Contract to Improve Quality, Capacity and ...

2006-11-27T02:47:00.000-08:00

MOSCOW, Nov. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mobile Telesystems (MTS; NYSE: MBT), the largest mobile operator in Russia and CIS, has awarded an equipment upgrade and services contract to Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) to improve the quality, capacity and performance of its Moscow macro region network, MTS' largest geographic region. This contract will allow MTS to further improve its voice and data quality, and help to reduce operating and capital expenses by introducing new features, improving network usage capacity and optimizing network architecture and topology. The project includes base station upgrades in the Moscow macro region and the deployment of EDGE (1) on all segments of the macro region's network (2), which will allow MTS to double the number of potential data service subscribers and increase the speed of data transfer.

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Motorola to begin volume production of DVB-H mobile handsets in ...

2006-11-25T02:42:00.000-08:00

Motorola will likely begin volume production of its first DVB-H (digital video broadcasting-handheld) handsets for the global market in the middle of 2007, according to Jerry Kuo, technical and product director of mobile devices at Motorola Taiwan. In addition to DVB-H technology, Motorola will also actively develop other technologies supporting mobile TV, Kuo added, noting that the company has already launched its DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting) handsets in South Korea. In the Taiwan market, Motorola and its local partner, Public Television Service (PTS), have obtained a license for trial mobile digital TV broadcasting that allows them begin a pilot run before year-end 2006, according to sources at PTS. Expecting to start commercial operations in November 2007, Motorola and PTS plan to use central office equipment (COE) from Thales and other CPE (customer premise equipment) products from Motorola and BenQ, said the sources.

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