i grew up with motorola in my life. they were the first walkie-talkie i ever used, the first pager i ever had, we can’t forget about such treasures as the zach morris phone or the illustrious moto bag phone, and they were my first cell phone. that was a long time ago. since then i have had some sort of cell phone but generally it has never been a motorola, save for a few.

since last week it was officially announced that the cell phone division would be spun off (though largely for accounting reasons to make the new ceo look good and make the acquisition seem palatable to a potential buyer) and the company would actually be two companies sometime in 2009. this comes on the heels of some really poor sales and a slipping market share. but there’s more reason the company is just not good: failure to innovate.

follow me here; motorola was the first one to create a cell phone (ask marty cooper) and that 8 pound brick was highly sought after and prohibitively expensive. they languished a bit but came up with the startac and suddenly they were back in the game. after a bit they designed the v60 and everyone had to have one. however this is where the game changed and motorola’s true colors began to show. between 1999-2003 they had 4 different permutations (i think mutations is a better word though) of the same phone.

for just about 4 years, between 2001 and 2005, no one gave a damn about motorola and although they had created the freaking cell phone they lost their vision and failed to innovate. at the behest of a certain ceo a new, better product “had to be created”. the product was the razr. shunning naming conventions they dropped any extra vowels and had the latest and greatest product. it was waaaay overpriced but everyone wanted one. they drooled over it, they wanted it, they had to have it and that’s what moto.

but something happened, they failed to innovate and move past the razr. while you may say that it’s an understatement let me give you a very quick example. this is a short list of the global releases of the various models in the razr line: v3, v3i, v3r, v3t, v3im, ms500, v3c, v3m, v3x, m702ig, v3xx, m702is, maxx and this doesn’t include the illustrious razr2 (or is it the krzr) line. i didn’t even include the various color options that were and are available. okay that’s 13 by my count and that’s if you don’t count color, but certainly plenty more if you do. i’m also not counting the number w series models now available that are close to the original. confusing? yes. down right stupid? certainly. i would challenge someone at motorola to run down a list of the specific differences between models (without bringing up the different cellular bands).

they never were able to move past the razr in the incarnation they dreamed up. once again moto became a one-trick-pony and failed to evolve. stagnation is a good word, but not the most appropriate. ed zndr (pun intended) and crew once again created a great product and proceeded to mutate it a gazillion times. i won’t get into the troubles with the screen or the user interface, but i will say that no product is without problems.

overall motorola was first to market, had the market share and pissed it away. this is a cycle they are prone to partaking in. not only that but they also failed to recognize this until it was too late. now they are in ‘abandon ship’ mode and the boy genius and crew had some issues visiting their booth at ctia. what gives is that they are sinking, they know they are sinking, and if they actually had some balls they would attempt to turn around their corporate culture before they see any further losses.