Photo: edans / Flickr

Speaking to reporters during a roundtable meeting, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha revealed that his company would release fewer handsets in 2012 when compared to its release schedule from years prior.

Better concentration of marketing dollars

Jha lamented too many homogenous products in similar price ranges eroding the return a company can make in the smartphone space. He said (via AllThingsD) that there were: “A lot of products that are roughly the same doesn’t drive the market to a new place.” Motorola itself is partly responsible for this, releasing multiple Droid devices in a short period during the tail end of 2011. He insists that it would be better to invest heavily in fewer products.

Competition forced this

Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha also insists that he came to this decision independent of what other smartphone manufacturers – Android and otherwise – will do. He said ‘We’re doing what we think is the right thing.’

Becoming Google like in its thinking

Jha also revealed that Motorola would pursue fewer product ideas, and instead throw its weight behind the ideas and concepts that were sticking. The strategy is very reminiscent of what Google is in the process of doing, with the company’s numerous side projects falling to the wayside for big deal initiatives. This should not come as a surprise, of course, because Motorola Mobility is in the process of being acquired by Google, so whatever the company can do now to align with its parent company’s strategy is prudent.

Sanjay Jha was quick to emphasise that this did not mean that the company would stop looking at new product solutions, or product categories. He said they still had an eye to the future. Yet, with warnings that their Q4 earnings are going to be softer than expected, suffice to say Motorola Mobility – and Google, by extension – don’t want to gamble and experiment for gambling and experimentation’s sake.

Photo: Motorola

Motorola’s next tablet is well and truly on the way, This Is My Next officially confirmed in spy shots. And while other tablet makers have gone from debuting a 7-inch device and stepping it up to a 10-inch device, Motorola is going the opposite way, going from their 10-inch Motorola Xoom to a thinner, sleeker looking 7-inch device.

So, what is it?

The source who sent the spy shots of the new Motorola Tablet to This Is My Next says that Motorola’s logo seems to be in the top left corner in portrait orientation, perhaps indicating the default orientation Motorola wants for its device. As to the OS, TIMN writes: ‘You can just barely make out that it’s running Honeycomb’s camera app, so it’s running Android – we just don’t know what version.’

From the spy shot, it also appears that the tablet PC’s display is 16:9, with micro-USB ports and a micro-HDMI port for added connectivity on either end.

Sensible and strange

The fact that it is running Android makes sense – Motorola is, after all, in the process of being acquired by Google. The big question, of course, is will it be running Android Honeycomb or the hugely anticipated Android Ice Cream Sandwich platform?

What is surprising, however, is the decision to opt for a 7-inch tablet PC. The only tablet PC form factor that’s had widespread success is 10 inches – maybe that has something to do with the fact that the iPad has, on most accounts, been the only true breakout hit and it just so happens to be 10 inches.

Or perhaps there is something else to it – hardships with the first attempt? Anyhow, watching Motorola roll out hardware under their new Google overlords will be interesting, and though release details or pricing or even an official reveal of this new Motorola tablet has yet to happen, we at least know that it is on the way.

Photo: Motorola

Though the company had a better-than-expected quarter and Xoom sales were well received, Motorola Mobility’s forecast disappointed investors, especially during a time when other smartphone manufacturers’ businesses are soaring.

Something to cheer about

The company announced that the Motorola Xoom tablet PC had strong sales, shipping 440,000 units in the quarter ending June. Analysts predicted the Android tablet PC’s sales would total 300,000 units for the quarter. Motorola Mobility also shipped 4.4 million smartphones, slightly more than the 4.3 million units analysts predicted.

In a statement, Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha said: ‘In the second quarter, Mobile Devices launched several new smartphones in the U.S. and markets around the world. Revenues grew over 40 percent driven largely by Latin America and China where sales more than doubled year over year.’

The outlook is the problem

While the Q2 performance of Motorola Mobility is very encouraging, the company’s outlook disappointed investors. The firm predicted non-GAAP earnings ranging from zero to 10 cents per share for Q3. Analysts on Wall Street were expecting 24 cents for each share on revenue of $3.37 billion (£2.05b).

Jha promised his firm would ‘focus on profitable growth,’ adding that they ‘expect to achieve profitability in Mobile Devices in the fourth quarter and for the full year 2011.’

For the whole year, Mobility promises earnings ranging from 48 cents to 60 cents per share, whereas Wall Street was hoping for earnings of 71 cents per share. So for both Q3, as well as the remainder of the year, the mobile devices manufacturer is more pessimistic than bankers are.

On your radar

It will be interesting to see if Motorola Mobility sales in the third and fourth quarter live up to the company’s expectations. Are there any Motorola smartphones on the horizon you’re waiting for, especially in the wake of strong releases by HTC, Samsung and the incoming iPhone 5?

Photo: Motorola

While the name ‘Carl Icahn’ may mean very little to tech readers, publically traded corporations the world over know the name, and the name generally incites fear in the executives who run these companies. Mr. Icahn’s latest target seems to be Motorola which has been encouraged by the activist investor to explore selling or its patents library.

Sell the patents

The billionaire investor’s interest in Motorola Mobility was piqued by the massive $4.5 billion (£2.76b) a consortium led by Apple paid for Nortel Networks Corp’s patents. He disclosed in a filing with the SEC that he had been in contact with the company regarding its patent portfolio, which he called ‘substantially larger’ than Nortel Networks’, including patents held for 4G telecommunication technologies, which Carl Icahn deemed to having ‘significant’ value.

The pressure is on

In an interview, speaking on Motorola, [via All Things D] Icahn said: ‘I am concerned that the tail is wagging the dog.’ He added ‘They should maximize the monetization without being overly concerned on the effects of the operating company.’ Always one to put a price on, well, everything, Icahn said he believed Motorola patents were worth more than $4 billion (£2.46b).

Why Motorola execs do not want this

Carl Icahn is known as an activist investor – a term loosely used for investors who buy a large stake in corporations where they want to see things done differently because they believe the current board or management teams operations significantly hinder the ‘real’ value of a company.

This often means instating a ‘proxy battle’ where the activist investor gets the support of other investors to vote the board out and replace that board with people the investor believes will better be able to run the company. Oftentimes if the activist investor wins, they force the sale of a company or of a component of the company. Motorola Mobility executives will be fairly concerned seeing Carl Icahn take such an interest in Motorola patents, especially at a time when Motorola smartphones seem to have a decent chance of making a legitimate comeback.

Photo: Motorola

With the Motorola Xoom fading from the spotlight, Motorola Mobility has reportedly turned its attention to its next entry for the tablet PC market. According to a report coming out of Fudzilla, the new 10-inch device has exceptionally beefy specs, including a quad-core Nvidia made processor.

What you get

According to Fudzilla, the tablet – which we’ll call the Motorola Xoom 2 for now – will ship with Android 4.0 – aka Ice-cream Sandwich – and will have a 2048×1536 high resolution display. The star of the show, though, is the quad-core Nvidia Kal-El chip that will do all the heavy lifting.

What is Kal-El?

We previously wrote on this chip, which, if Nvidia’s claims are true, will bring ‘a 500 per cent performance increase on what the dual-core Tegra 2 delivers.’

Incidentally, the chip’s name is a nod to Superman’s Kryptonian name, with Nvidia claiming it will be one of the most powerful processors for mobile upon arrival. Umm, so man of steel powerful, then?

Sounds believable

Given that rumours have been swirling that the Apple iPad 3 will sport a similar 2048×1536 high resolution LCD display, plus evidence that the Nvidia Kal-El quad-core processor will begin arriving on the market in bulk in the coming months, it’s not at all unlikely that the Motorola Xoom 2 sports the specs rumoured.

If the rumour is indeed true, this Motorola tablet PC has the makings of a winner from a hardware perspective. Software is, arguably, where the real battle for dominance is, with many complaining the original Xoom shipped with the rough around the edges at the time Android Honeycomb OS, as well as too sparse an apps offering. Yet with time, there’s a fair chance Android on tablets will have the developer traction Android on smartphones has, giving the Motorola Xoom 2 every chance to succeed.

Photo: mas90guru / Flickr

While Motorola Mobility has built its entire comeback off the back of Google Android, there are industry murmurings that the company is in the process of building its own web-based mobile OS platform as an alternative to its reliance on Google’s.

Own OS

Information Week got the scoop after hearing the word from one source, with Deutsche Bank’s Jonathan Goldberg backing their claims. Goldberg says: ‘I know they’re working on it.’ He continued, saying: ‘I think the company recognises that they need to differentiate and they need options, just in case. Nobody wants to rely on a single supplier.’

Heavy recruitment

What’s more, apparently Motorola Mobility has been in recruitment mode, nabbing execs from Apple, Adobe and several other prominent technology companies for the process. Other details so far reported also suggest that the company will build its platform according to web standards, putting it more in line with HP’s webOS than Google’s Android in terms of how it works.

We sort of knew this, though

Incidentally, these are not the first murmurings of Motorola Mobility building their own mobile OS platform. CEO Sanjay Jha alluded to the company building its own operating system at a conference last year.

At the time, he said: ‘I’ve always felt that owning your OS is important, provided you have an ecosystem, you have all the services and you have an ability and the scale to execute on keeping that OS at the leading edge. And I continue to believe that at some point, if we have all of those attributes, that owning our own OS will be a very important thing.’

Gamble you must

It’s difficult to say whether Motorola should gamble with building a mobile OS platform. Motorola Android handsets have been very good to them, and the process of rebuilding a smartphone ecosystem as proficient as Google’s takes time, capital outlay and a lot of hard work. Is the threat of giving Google too much power pressing enough that this is the right course of action? It seems so for Motorola.

Photo: dpstyles™ / Flickr

Motorola says they have empathy for rival Nokia, with regards to deciding which mobile OS platform is best suited for the company. One of the company’s European executives says Nokia is going through the exact same pains Motorola went through a few years ago.

Tough decisions must be made

Andy Hooper, who is Motorola Mobility’s director of European & MEA converged experiences, sees Nokia’s difficult decision to abandon Symbian in favour of Windows Phone 7 as a similar crossroads Moto was at a few years ago.

Hooper told TechRadar that: ‘To some degree we look at what’s happening with Nokia and we did that on a smaller scale three years ago.’ He continued, saying: ‘We had to make that tough decision; what are the platforms on which we are going to build the business.’ Ultimately Motorola Mobility opted to back Google Android as their primary mobile OS platform for Moto smartphones.

In that same interview, he said: ‘That [decision] takes time to pass through the development process, and then bringing devices to market and, of course, getting the products right takes time.’

Speaking from experience

While Motorola and Nokia have had a tense relationship as rivals, it’s interesting that an executive at the company that is on the up is empathetic to a once dominant competitor on the down. With the Motorola Razr the company had a massive hit on their hands, before bleeding market share for ages. Only after Motorola Mobility launched the Motorola Droid (Milestone) on Google Android did the company start making a profit again.

With the Motorola Nokia fortunes turned somewhat, hopes in Finland are that the Nokia Windows Phone 7 handsets could help the still-powerful company dominant the high-profit smartphone space.

It’s hard to say right now how things will fare for either Microsoft or Nokia but it would certainly be an understatement to say the two companies are hugely reliant on each other if they are to make their respective mobile OS ecosystem work.

Photo: Huawei

What happens when all you want is a fresh start for your company, by splitting it into two independent divisions? Oh, a lawsuit to put a dampener on any optimism for a fresh start you may have been hoping for. Well, that’s exactly what Huawei is doing, in suing Motorola and Motorola Mobility.

A sale turned sour

Huawei has brought a tech lawsuit to the pair of companies over the sale of their wireless network business to Nokia Siemens for $1.2 billion (£760 million) late last year. The claim here is that important Huawei intellectual property that is no doubt embedded in Moto’s wireless business is being sold off, and the wireless tech company would rather not see this happen.

IP protection

In the suit, via AllThingsD, the company claims: ‘Such a transfer, if consummated in its originally contemplated form, will result in the massive disclosure of Huawei’s confidential information to NSN, with irreparable harm to Huawei.’ It continues, reading: ‘A large number of Motorola employees, many carrying direct knowledge of Huawei’s confidential information, would become employees of NSN. Huawei hereby sues to obtain preliminary injunctive relief to prevent such harm pending an arbitration under the agreements.’

What goes around…

One can’t help but feel a little sorry for Motorola and Motorola Mobility, who seem more concerned with forging ahead by rebuilding their business than the frivolity of tech lawsuits that are too commonplace lately. It is a little funny, though, considering Moto brought a tech lawsuit to Huawei in 2010 for corporate espionage, reminding us the age old saying that ‘what goes around comes around’ still has value today.

Who are these companies?

Most everyone knows Motorola, of course, primarily for their mobile phones business, which has seen some success on Android in recent years after struggling for some time.

Huawei is a less high profile company, but is still hugely influential nonetheless. The product they make that the average consumer would immediately recognise are the 3G data sticks for laptops and the popular MiFi routers.

Tech lawsuits are fast becoming the bane of this industry, and while there seems to be no way of getting around them, they’re certainly stifling innovation.

Photo: Motorola

Off the back of impressive earnings results fueled by fantastic performance of their Google Android handsets, Motorola has confirmed that the spin-off of its mobile unit is scheduled for January next year. After a year of clawing back to mobile phones relevance, the company looks poised to start fighting back for the dominance it once had with the insanely popular Motorola Razr.

Motorola Mobility and Solutions

The mobile phones and set top boxes spin-off will be called Motorola Mobility, while the business that sells wireless technology to enterprises and governments will be called Motorola Solutions. Reuters reports that Solutions has a long-term annualized growth rate of 5 per cent to 8 per cent and that this group will consider paying a dividend – something Moto does not currently do.

Motorola Mobility’s momentum

It’s at a pivotal time in the mobile phones war that Moto has begun plotting and putting in place its come back. At a time when Google Android is sweeping through the industry and threatening even Symbian at the top of the pile, Motorola has done well to piggybank its handset’s success to that platform.

Current lineup

Motorola’s current Google Android lineup is impressive, to say the very least. You can purchase the original Droid, the Droid 2 and the Droid X from the company, with each phone being exceptionally proficient and easily up there as one of the best phones available on the Android mobile OS platform.

Without making predictions, I think it’s safe to say that Motorola Mobility could take the industry by surprise in the next few years. The big headache Moto has, of course, is Apple’s iPhone, and other handsets on the Android mobile OS platform, most notably those made by HTC and Samsung. But come January, when the company goes it alone, and investors know exactly what it is they’re getting, we’ll have a better sense of the true worth of Motorola Mobility.

Photo: Motorola

If HTC rode the Google Android ship towards smartphone influence and power, Motorola has ridden the Android wave toward recovery. Not only did Motorola post fantastic profits of $109 million (£68,31m) for the quarter, Motorola’s mobile division has just posted a surprise operating profit in the company’s Q3 earnings. To show their appreciation of this turnaround, the share surged 5% in value in no time.

Unreal turn around

Motorola posted operating profit of $3 million (£1.88m). Sure, in isolation that figure is very unimpressive. But everything is about context. Now contrast that $3 million operating profit with a loss of $183 million (£114m) in the same period last year, and suddenly that measly $3 million becomes a colossal achievement. And this turnaround has been built around Google Android Motorola smartphones.

The comeback trail

Thanks in no small part to the stabilization of Google Android as a mobile OS platform, as well as Motorola releasing timely, high quality devices running the OS, Moto has been able to put this slow comeback into hypercharge.  The Droid, Droid X, and Droid 2 Google Android handsets have been extremely popular, especially in North America, helping a dying mobile business regain relevance in consumers’ eyes almost overnight.

It’s also validation for Motorola’s co-CEO, Sanjay Jha, who since the very beginning of his tenure promised an unlikely turnaround for the company’s mobile phones unit and, lo-and-behold, he’s pulled it off.

The future

If you’re a finance buff, or are simply fascinated by corporate strategy, Moco News ran an interesting story on the strategy the company had to adopt to begin its long, painful comeback, as well as on what’s next for Motorola smartphones.

With Motorola’s mobile division going it alone soon when the company splits in two soon, this performance armed with a sizeable war chest might suggest that Moto is ready to be taken seriously in the smartphone space. Have you played with any of the Android Motorola smartphones and if yes, how has your experience been?