The Register is reporting that Motorola's outpost in Birmingham, England has officially been placed on death row this week, with its 121 staff ominously being told that they're "at risk for redundancy." We're pretty sure that's code for "we think someone else is already doing your job, but we need to confirm that and get back to you," so in the meantime it seems like a brilliant idea for the so-notified folks to prep their CVs and hightail it outta there. To be fair, Moto is apparently going to start by trying to offer relocation or work-from-home deals for some of the Birmingham peeps, but it seems that it's a best-case scenario. Even worse, the office is a Moto design center; correct us if we're wrong, but we don't think you turn around a
struggling phone manufacturer by killing off design, right?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
KKop @ Mar 20th 2008 12:42PM
The design center was in the UK? I guess that solves the 'why are Moto phones so hideous' mystery.
Doesn't really matter where the design center moves to, it couldn't be worse than this one.
Darren @ Mar 20th 2008 12:58PM
KKop, isn't Jonathan Ive English?
I'm pretty sure the Birmingham centre is what used to be Sendo, creators of the Moto Z8 and Sendo X, before Microsoft shafted them.
Atlanta Resident @ Mar 20th 2008 2:24PM
Yep... that would be the old Sendo people.
shaliron @ Mar 21st 2008 8:54AM
Ah, the design was the last thing going for them.
As horrible as their software was, the design of phones like the RAZR V8 and V9 were high quality stuff!
caffeinated @ Mar 21st 2008 4:32PM
is there any hope they could axe the tools who designed the Q and Q9?
website design @ Mar 23rd 2008 6:36AM
Motorola is poised to axe half the staff at its design facility in Birmingham, as the mobile company tries to turn around its beleaguered mobile devices division.
All the 121 staff at the facility were told Tuesday they are "at risk of redundancy". Motorola is proposing to make half of them redundant and said it may close the site.