Motorola

About Us

Motorola

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
 
 
Jump to navigationJump to search
Motorola, Inc.
Formerly
Galvin Manufacturing Corporation (1928–1947)
Public
Traded as NYSE: MOT
Industry TelecommunicationsMobile phones
Fate Demerged into Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions
Successor
Founded September 25, 1928; 92 years ago
Founders Paul and Joseph Galvin
Defunct January 4, 2011; 9 years ago
Headquarters 1303 East Algonquin Road, 
U.S.[1]
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Brayn Lopez (CEO & Chairman)
  • Gino Bonanotte (CFO)
  • Shamik Mukherjee (CMO)
  • Mahesh Saptharishi (CTO)
Products
Number of employees
53,000 (2019) Edit this on Wikidata
Divisions
  • Mobile Phone Devices
  • Connected Home Solutions
  • Network Home Solutions

Motorola, Inc. (/ˌmtəˈrlə/[2]) was an American multinational telecommunications company founded on September 25, 1928, based in Schaumburg, Illinois. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company demerged into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011.[3] Motorola Inc. was renamed Motorola Solutions and is legally the direct successor to the original company after the demerger from Motorola Mobility.[4][5] Motorola Mobility was sold to Google in 2012, and acquired by Chinese company Lenovo in 2014.[6]

Motorola designed and sold wireless network equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. Motorola's home and broadcast network products included set-top boxesdigital video recorders, and network equipment used to enable video broadcasting, computer telephony, and high-definition television. Its business and government customers consisted mainly of wireless voice and broadband systems (used to build private networks), and public safety communications systems like Astro and Dimetra. These businesses (except for set-top boxes, wireless networks, and cable modems) are now part of Motorola Solutions. Google sold Motorola Home (the former General Instrument cable businesses) to the Arris Group in December 2012 for US$2.35 billion.[7]

Motorola's wireless telephone handset division was a pioneer in cellular telephones. Also known as the Personal Communication Sector (PCS) prior to 2004, it pioneered the "mobile phone" with DynaTAC, "flip phone" with the MicroTAC, as well as the "clam phone" with the StarTAC in the 1990s. It had staged a resurgence by the 2000s with the Razr, but lost market share in the second half of that decade. Later it focused on smartphones using Google's open-source Android mobile operating system. The first phone to use the newest version of Google's open source OS, Android 2.0, was released on November 2, 2009 as the Motorola Droid (the GSM version launched a month later, in Europe, as the Motorola Milestone).

The handset division (along with cable set-top boxes and cable modems divisions, which would later be sold to Arris Group) was later spun off into the independent Motorola Mobility. On May 22, 2012, Google CEO Larry Page announced that Google had closed on its deal to acquire Motorola Mobility.[8] On January 29, 2014, Page announced that, pending closure of the deal, Motorola Mobility would be acquired by Hong Kong based technology company Lenovo for US$2.91 billion (subject to certain adjustments).[9] On October 30, 2014, Lenovo finalized its purchase of Motorola Mobility from Google.[10]