
Ugh, it looks like Thursday is shaping up to be another sad Moto day. The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that
Sanjay Jha, former Qualcomm exec and Motorola co-CEO tasked with resurrecting Motorola's mobile-devices division, is about to slash jobs in an effort to bring costs and production under control. Though obviously unwelcome news, it likely won't come as a surprise to employees since Jha reportedly told them that Motorola has two to three times as many employees working on individual projects compared to its competitors. Cuts will likely number in the "thousands," according to the WSJ's sources, and could come as early as Thursday when Motorola announces earnings... or more likely, lack thereof. Motorola
has already shed 10,000 jobs since the start of 2007. In addition to job cuts, Jha plans to "scrap dozens of phone designs" while scaling back its mobile-OS inventory from more than a half-dozen to just three: Android for multi-media and Internet showcase phones, Windows Mobile for ho-hum business devices, and its own P2K for low-end phones. Moto will likely outsource at least some of its WinMo phone production as well. As to his motivation: $100 million and 3 percent stock if Mr. Jha manages to spin-out the mobile devices division into an independent company by late 2010. $30 million if he fails. Win-win, eh Sanjay?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Max @ Oct 29th 2008 3:46AM
It's a shame to be losing linux based OSs, but hopefully they'll be able to do great things with Android. I don't see this as a sad day - maybe for those getting sacked, but this is making the company more healthy. I look forward to great things from this company.
xB Owner @ Oct 29th 2008 12:46PM
I'll fail for half the price.
2fast4u2fast4u @ Oct 29th 2008 9:28PM
Moto has been doing pretty good the past few weeks. They have made a lot of worthy releases. I think this is for the better and Moto will eventually prosper in the future.
Jason @ Oct 30th 2008 11:50AM
Future business school students will be studying how such a successful company fell from grace in such a short amount of time.