The most critical element that emerged from Brad Smith’s OSBC keynote is the importance of protecting the downstream. By “downstream” I mean those users who might come into contact with open-source software beyond the immediate licensee. One of the benefits of open source is that once released under a certain license, the code endures under that license.

Patents foul the water. As emerged from the question-and-answer period, while Microsoft might prefer to deal with other “cathedrals” (e.g., its agreements with Novell, LG, etc.), in open source you simply can’t avoid the bazaar (e.g., downstream developers who may come into contact with the code). This is why at Microsoft’s Mix conference, Mozilla’s Mike Schroepfer took issue with Miguel de Icaza’s recommendation that his Moonlight code is protected from patent claims:

During the discussion, de Icaza explained that anyone who downloaded Moonlight from Novell was protected by the company’s licensing of Silverlight codecs from Microsoft through the company’s own cross-licensing agreement. Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering from Mozilla, then raised the question that if he downloads and then distributes the code for Moonlight, would he get the patent protection?

…

source Tech news blog

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We've been hearing a lot about all the data service offerings that’ll grant airline passengers to get their data-fix while in-flight, so it's refreshing to here of some developments regarding in-flight voice calls. Following on Norwegian Air's plan to offer in-flight voice calls and world wide web services through its Call Norwegian venture, the Office of Communications (OfCom, the UK equivalent to the US FCC) has announced that it will grant lofty voice calls from UK-registered airplanes later this year. The OfCom decision is still pending European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). OfCom states that the approval was granted in cooperation with other EU countries and will eventually grant in-flight cellphone calls throughout the EU.

The UK plan grants airline passengers to make in-flight mobile phone calls with their cellphone. The signal will be routed through an on-board cellular base station (ensuring that no communication between handset and ground base stations interfere with a plane's avionics), and wireless minutes will be billed as usual through the passenger's wireless operator. Incoming and outgoing calls can be made once the plane reaches a minimum altitude of 3,000 feet, and calls will be prohibited during take-off and landing procedures.

“The safety of passengers is paramount and mobile systems on aircraft will only be installed when they have secured approval by the European Aviation Safety Bureau and the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK,” Ofcom stated.

So, where does the US stand on in-flight wireless calling? It stands on the other side of the room from OfCom and the EU - like some pre-pubescent boy scared of the EU's, shall we state, blossoming, wireless policies. The FCC and FAA have ruled that in-flight wireless calling is prohibited over US airspace, making for a bleak outlook on traditional in-flight cellular calls. At those of use outside the EU we'll have some in-flight data. Let's just hope that Aircell and the like don't restrict VoIP access through their data services.

[Via: Bloomberg]

—
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• European Union might be getting in-flight cellphone use soon
• FAA puts its foot down on in-flight cell phone calls - it ain't gonna happen
• Qantas in-flight email and SMS text messaging set to take off on domestic Australian flights
• UK: Ofcom announces it's plan to release spectrum (via auction) for Mobile TV
• US airlines prepping in-flight internet access for next week

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The most critical element that emerged from Brad Smith’s OSBC keynote is the importance of protecting the downstream. By “downstream” I mean those users who may come into contact with open-source software beyond the immediate licensee. One of the benefits of open source is that once released under a certain license, the code endures under that license.

Patents foul the water. As emerged from the question-and-answer period, while Microsoft may like to deal with other “cathedrals” (e.g., its agreements with Novell, LG, etc.), in open source you simply can’t avoid the bazaar (e.g., downstream developers who may come into contact with the code). This is why at Microsoft’s Mix conference, Mozilla’s Mike Schroepfer took issue with Miguel de Icaza’s suggestion that his Moonlight code is protected from patent claims:

During the discussion, de Icaza explained that anyone who downloaded Moonlight from Novell was protected by the company’s licensing of Silverlight codecs from Microsoft through the company’s own cross-licensing agreement. Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering from Mozilla, then raised the question that if he downloads and then distributes the code for Moonlight, would he get the patent protection?

…

source Tech news blog

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T-Mobile's push to rid the planet of landlines with their T-Mobile HotSpot @Home UMA program has started to catch on. The idea of dropping your traditional landline in favor of using your wireless minutes at home is getting more and more traction around the world. I personally haven't used a landline (although I subscribe to digital phone service in order to get the bundled TV/internet/phone deal on the cheap) in a handful of years. Why pay extra for a landline when you can just use your massive daily allotment of wireless minutes (you do have plenty of wireless minutes, don't you)?

Well, Panasonic has realized that a major barrier to wireless-only adoption by many city-dwellers will be the lack of wireless/cellular reception while indoors. It's great and all to promote the use of mobile phones in all places at all times, but that idea falls flat in the face of poor reception. So, Panny has drummed up the Panasonic Link To Cell base station.

The Link To Cell is basically a Bluetooth connected base station that tethers to your cellphone. Just as a Bluetooth headset will ring/vibrate when your cellphone receives an incoming call, the Panasonic Link To Cell will ring your home phone handset when you get an incoming call on your mobile phone.

Your cellphone connects to a single Link To Cell base station, allowing you to place the cellphone that one particular corner that gets good signal reception. All the receiving handsets connect to the base station. You can connect up to six satellite handsets throughout the house, and each handset is equipped with DECT 6.0, talking caller ID, a night mode (determine when the phone rings and when to stay silent), ringerID (set different ringtones for different callers), and call block. As a nice, green-touch, the Panasonic home phone handsets are RoHS certified.

If 100% wireless is your goal but you just don't have the cellular coverage inside your home to make truly landline-less living a reality, give the Panasonic Link To Cell a go.  It's available now for $99.99, which includes one home phone handset. Each additional handset will cost $39.99.

Panasonic

[Via: Gadgetell]

—
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• UK Office of Communications to grant in-flight cellphone calls - OfCom plan allows voice calls

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Motorola's up and split itself into two distinct entities. We now have the Motorola Mobile Devices division and the Motorola Broadband & Mobility Solutions division running as stand-alone companies. The breakup of the company follows a string of problems and setbacks related to losses in the mobile phone sector. Perhaps the splitting up of Motorola is just the first step Moto's efforts to help make the handset division more appealing to possible takeover, but that's just speculation.

The real story underlying Motorola's break-up is in the behind-the-scenes turmoil and inefficiencies of Motorola's Board. This story starts with former Motorola CMO Geoffrey Frost and his role in revitalizing Motorola's handset business with the RAZR all those years ago.

Numair Faraz, personal advisor to Frost until his death in 2005, has written an open letter to Motorola's Board of Directors, CEO, and Motorola investors. The letter attacks the head-honchos at Motorola for grossly mis-managing Moto's success (wasting Frost's major contribution in turning the company around) with the RAZR and how the inept leadership of the once-great company ultimately led to it's sad say of affairs.

Engadget has also uncovered that Motorola, under former CEO Ed Zander's direction, maintained an extravagant fleet of private jets. Not only was Zander squandering the windfalls from the RAZR's success on enterprise business acquisitions and stock-buy-backs (accusations made by Faraz), he was flushing cash down the drain on unnecessary amenities. Add that to current CEO Greg Brown's technological incompetence (he refuses to communicate by computer/internet/email, and has his email correspondence printed out), and it's not hard to see why Motorola is in such a predicament.

The technology company run by a guy that doesn't use a personal and dictates replies to printed emails to his secretary. The Board might do well to get together one of those needlessly extravagant golden parachutes and kick Brown to the curb while they still have money to pay him off and make a difference in the company. Otherwise, management incompetencies of Motorola's magnitude will eventually lead to the death of the spun-off handset division - no matter how capable the new handset division's chief turns out to be.

Read Faraz's letter after the break.

Dear Greg Brown, and the rest of the executive team at Motorola,

As you might or may not recall, I worked with Geoffrey Frost as a personal adviser during his days as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of the company. I was the one quoted in Forbes in 2003 as saying “Motorola's biggest problem is that Samsung kicks ass,” and eventually came to spend almost three years working with Geoffrey during his efforts to revamp the company's mobile lineup, which eventually saw the launch of the RAZR. As I told the company's senior designers at Motorola's 75th anniversary meeting: create something cooler (and more expensive) than anything else out there, and everyone will want it.

After the success of the RAZR, while Geoffrey was tied up every which way in ROKR development, meetings, criscrossing travel, and so on, through his associates I implored the company to beef up their software expertise, and focus on creating socially networked devices (this was in the years before MySpace and Facebook became the juggernauts they are today). Your predecessor, Ed Zander, had tiny interest in this, and instead insisted on parlaying his relationship with Steve Jobs into the ill-fated ROKR effort in order to prop up Motorola's stock price.

Zander, who seemed to care more about his golf score than running one of America's greatest technology companies, left all of the hard work to Geoffrey; I've always considered it Motorola's dirty tiny secret that the strategy for their entire profit machine was run by the company's CMO — not the rest of the company's executives, who are as inept now as they’ve ever been.

Many close to Geoffrey believed Ed Zander worked him to death, putting the pressure of the fate of the company in his hands. I took his untimely death in 2005 very hard, and knew that the company would head downhill in the aftermath. On a personal note, Lynne, his wife blamed the company for his passing. She committed suicide soon after.

Meanwhile, Ed Zander continued to reap the dividends of Geoffrey's work as the company made billions in profit from overselling the RAZR for years. Instead of channeling that money into the obvious — further development of groundbreaking consumer devices — Zander purchased enterprise companies such as Symbol ($3.9b), and engineered billions of dollars in stock buybacks.

As I told Zander in a phone call in 2007, I felt that he was setting the company up for massive failure. He had the audacity to state, “Well, maybe Geoffrey should have come up with a superior successor to the RAZR,” and told me to “Wait for massive things in 2008.” I guess he was right — the golden parachute he got for his exit from the company was worth about 30 million dollars — and that doesn't include his accumulated Motorola stock.

Your appointment to the position of chief executive gave me cause for hope, and I reached out to you; I knew you were one of the main drivers behind the enterprise acquisitions, and that you had zero expertise in consumer devices. Surely you could use some help in turning Motorola's flagging cellphone business around?

But apparently different from the rest of the incompetent senior executives at Motorola — except instead of merely being inept, you're actually actively killing the company. Your lack of understanding of the consumer side of Motorola doesn't give you a valid reason for selling the handset business; moreover, publicly disclosing your explorations of such a move, in an attempt to keep Carl Icahn off your back, shows how much you value the safety of your incompetence.

You clearly have no interest in fighting the good fight and attempting to mold Motorola into the market leader it can and should be. Taking control of the handset division, as you have recently announced, will accomplish very little except but to give you an ability to say, “We tried our best” — which you haven't — when you finally do cart the business off to the highest bidder.

In order to turn the handset division around, you need to bring in another Frost; someone worldly and dynamic who is more interested in Motorola's success than their own corporate career. You need to task the company's designers with the same mantra that created the RAZR — make me a phone that looks, feels, and works like a symbol of wealth and privilege. Recognize the superiority of American software, and bring back those jobs so irresponsibly outsourced to China and Russia. Fully embrace embedded Linux and Google's Android initiative, and take the phone operating system out of the stone age.

Recognize that, while rich people don't really know what they want, the lower end of the market does — and fund the development of an online “crowdsourced” device design platform to take advantage of this fact. Get rid of all of your silly, useless marketing, including those overpriced and completely ineffective celebrity endorsements, and do one unified global campaign with Daft Punk (the only group whose global appeal extends from American hip hoppers to trendy Shanghai club kids to middle-aged Londoners). Comprehend that the next massive feature in handsets isn't a camera or a music player — it is social connectedness; build expertise in this area, and sell it down the entire value chain.

I was there when Motorola's handset division was brought back from the brink of death 5 years ago. Follow my advice, and we have the ability to do it again.

Maybe it sounds like I take the downfall of Motorola personally; I do. It was my experience at Motorola, with people like Geoffrey and all of the loyal employees who still remain, that taught me what corporate America can and should be. But with people such as Zander and yourself, Motorola stands for the worst of our country's corporate culture.

As an immigrant American, and someone who has traveled all over the world, I really do appreciate the uniqueness and importance of the American culture of creativity and ingenuity. Whereas other countries back their money on gold and commodities, we back ours on our ability to invent the future. The failure of Motorola as an American institution of creativity and innovation, should you let it happen, will now be entirely of your doing. Hopefully you'll keep that in mind while the board has the accountants prepare your golden parachute.

Regards,
Numair Faraz

Dated Feb 5, 2008. Letter edited for form.

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Motorola CEO Zander steps down to make way for COO Brown's reign
• New Motorola CEO takes control of handset division - Greg Brown takes reigns of cellphone business
• Motorola Blames Financial Slump on Lack of 3G Phones - Vows to Change
• Motorola CEO Greg Brown seeking out new executive to lead handset division
• Samsung gives Motorola the cold shoulder; follows LG, Sony Ericsson lead

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Motorola's up and split itself into two distinct entities. We now have the Motorola Mobile Devices division and the Motorola Broadband & Mobility Solutions division running as stand-alone companies. The breakup of the company follows a string of problems and setbacks related to losses in the mobile phone sector. Perhaps the splitting up of Motorola is just the first step Moto's efforts to help make the handset division more appealing to possible takeover, but that's just speculation.

The real story underlying Motorola's break-up is in the behind-the-scenes turmoil and inefficiencies of Motorola's Board. This story starts with former Motorola CMO Geoffrey Frost and his role in revitalizing Motorola's handset business with the RAZR all those years ago.

Numair Faraz, personal advisor to Frost until his death in 2005, has written an open letter to Motorola's Board of Directors, CEO, and Motorola investors. The letter attacks the head-honchos at Motorola for grossly mis-managing Moto's success (wasting Frost's major contribution in turning the company around) with the RAZR and how the inept leadership of the once-great company ultimately led to it's sad say of affairs.

Engadget has also uncovered that Motorola, under former CEO Ed Zander's direction, maintained an extravagant fleet of private jets. Not only was Zander squandering the windfalls from the RAZR's success on enterprise business acquisitions and stock-buy-backs (accusations made by Faraz), he was flushing cash down the drain on unnecessary amenities. Add that to current CEO Greg Brown's technological incompetence (he refuses to communicate by computer/internet/email, and has his email correspondence printed out), and it's not hard to see why Motorola is in such a predicament.

The technology company run by a guy that doesn't use a personal and dictates replies to printed emails to his secretary. The Board might do well to get together one of those needlessly extravagant golden parachutes and kick Brown to the curb while they still have money to pay him off and make a difference in the company. Otherwise, management incompetencies of Motorola's magnitude will eventually lead to the death of the spun-off handset division - no matter how capable the new handset division's chief turns out to be.

Read Faraz's letter after the break.

Dear Greg Brown, and the rest of the executive team at Motorola,

As you may or may not recall, I worked with Geoffrey Frost as a personal adviser during his days as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of the company. I was the one quoted in Forbes in 2003 as saying “Motorola's biggest problem is that Samsung kicks ass,” and eventually came to spend nearly three years working with Geoffrey during his efforts to revamp the company's mobile lineup, which eventually saw the launch of the RAZR. As I told the company's senior designers at Motorola's 75th anniversary meeting: create something cooler (and more expensive) than anything else out there, and everyone will want it.

After the success of the RAZR, while Geoffrey was tied up every which way in ROKR development, meetings, criscrossing travel, and so on, through his associates I implored the company to beef up their software expertise, and focus on creating socially networked devices (this was in the years before MySpace and Facebook became the juggernauts they are today). Your predecessor, Ed Zander, had tiny interest in this, and instead insisted on parlaying his relationship with Steve Jobs into the ill-fated ROKR effort in order to prop up Motorola's stock price.

Zander, who seemed to care more about his golf score than running one of America's greatest technology companies, left all of the hard work to Geoffrey; I've always considered it Motorola's dirty tiny secret that the strategy for their entire profit machine was run by the company's CMO — not the rest of the company's executives, who are as inept now as they have ever been.

Many close to Geoffrey believed Ed Zander worked him to death, putting the pressure of the fate of the company in his hands. I took his untimely death in 2005 very hard, and knew that the company would head downhill in the aftermath. On a personal note, Lynne, his wife blamed the company for his passing. She committed suicide soon after.

Meanwhile, Ed Zander continued to reap the dividends of Geoffrey's work as the company made billions in profit from overselling the RAZR for years. Instead of channeling that money into the obvious — further development of groundbreaking consumer devices — Zander purchased enterprise companies such as Symbol ($3.9b), and engineered billions of dollars in stock buybacks.

As I told Zander in a phone call in 2007, I felt that he was setting the company up for huge failure. He’d the audacity to state, “Well, maybe Geoffrey should have come up with a better successor to the RAZR,” and told me to “Wait for big things in 2008.” I guess he was right — the golden parachute he got for his exit from the company was worth about 30 million dollars — and that doesn't include his accumulated Motorola stock.

Your appointment to the position of chief executive gave me cause for hope, and I reached out to you; I knew you were one of the main drivers behind the enterprise acquisitions, and that you had zero expertise in consumer devices. Surely you could use some help in turning Motorola's flagging cellphone business around?

But apparently different from the rest of the incompetent senior executives at Motorola — except instead of merely being inept, you're actually actively killing the company. Your lack of understanding of the consumer side of Motorola doesn't give you a valid reason for selling the handset business; moreover, publicly disclosing your explorations of such a move, in an attempt to keep Carl Icahn off your back, shows how much you value the safety of your incompetence.

You clearly have no interest in fighting the good fight and attempting to mold Motorola into the market leader it can and should be. Taking control of the handset division, as you’ve recently announced, will accomplish very little except but to give you an capability to state, “We tried our best” — which you haven't — when you finally do cart the business off to the highest bidder.

In order to turn the handset division around, you need to bring in another Frost; someone worldly and dynamic who is more interested in Motorola's success than their own corporate career. You need to task the company's designers with the same mantra that created the RAZR — make me a phone that looks, feels, and works like a symbol of wealth and privilege. Recognize the superiority of American software, and bring back those jobs so irresponsibly outsourced to China and Russia. Fully embrace embedded Linux and Google's Android initiative, and take the phone operating system out of the stone age.

Recognize that, while rich people don't really know what they want, the lower end of the market does — and fund the development of an on the web “crowdsourced” device design platform to take advantage of this fact. Get rid of all of your silly, useless marketing, including those overpriced and totally ineffective celebrity endorsements, and do one unified global campaign with Daft Punk (the only group whose global appeal extends from American hip hoppers to trendy Shanghai club children to middle-aged Londoners). Comprehend that the next massive feature in handsets isn't a camera or a music player — it is social connectedness; build expertise in this area, and sell it down the entire value chain.

I was there when Motorola's handset division was brought back from the brink of death 5 years ago. Follow my advice, and we have the ability to do it again.

Maybe it sounds like I take the downfall of Motorola personally; I do. It was my experience at Motorola, with people like Geoffrey and all of the loyal employees who still remain, that taught me what corporate America can and should be. But with people such as Zander and yourself, Motorola symbolizes the worst of our country's corporate culture.

As an immigrant American, and someone who has traveled all over the world, I really do appreciate the uniqueness and importance of the American culture of creativity and ingenuity. Whereas other countries back their money on gold and commodities, we back ours on our capability to invent the future. The failure of Motorola as an American institution of creativity and innovation, should you let it happen, will now be entirely of your doing. Hopefully you'll keep that in mind while the board has the accountants prepare your golden parachute.

Regards,
Numair Faraz

Dated Feb 5, 2008. Letter edited for form.

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Motorola CEO Zander steps down to make way for COO Brown's reign
• New Motorola CEO takes control of handset division - Greg Brown takes reigns of cellphone business
• Motorola Blames Financial Slump on Lack of 3G Phones - Vows to Change
• Motorola CEO Greg Brown seeking out new executive to lead handset division
• Samsung gives Motorola the cold shoulder; follows LG, Sony Ericsson lead

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Boy Genius Reports is always getting the juicy scoop on upcoming handsets, and it looks like they've come through again. Their latest handset, a Motorola Q9, not only came to BGR toting a WiFi radio, but also boasts a verified Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard operating system running the show.

And, the Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard OS is showing off a few minor UI changes. There's apparently support for AT&T's Video Share, updated home screen, revised camera UI, TV-out support, and a new Albums feature within the Media Player. There's also support for Windows Live, allowing users to upload their photos and vids directly to their Windows Live account.

The new features sound like a great addition to the WM6.1 platform, and we can't wait to try them out. The changes aren't earth-shaking, but that can only mean that the Windows Mobile 6.1 OS is getting treated to the final tweaks and refinements that can only indicate a near-term launch - or at least an announcement (next week?).

Check out more photos of the WinMo6.1 interface in BGR's gallery.

[Via: BGR]

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LTE is really starting to stretch its legs as the high-speed mobile broadband standard that we knew it could always be. NTT DoCoMo reportedly just reached “a downlink transmission rate of 250Mbps over a high-speed wireless network in an outdoor test of an experimental Super 3G system.” Super 3G, also known as LTE (Long Term Evolution), an evolution from current HSDPA/HSUPA/HSPA standards based on WCDMA technology, is the next-generation of GSM-based mobile broadband solution. And, with NTT DoCoMo's new breakthrough, the road to LTE is looking mighty good.

NTT DoCoMo hit that 250Mbps downlink speed by using a MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) setup with a four antenna setup allowing for increased bandwidth. The technical bits are on the dry side, so we won't go into the details here. Just rest assured that the 250Mbps Super 3G LTE breakthrough is likely a milestone on the way towards 300Mbps LTE networks.

The carrier hopes to have finished development of the Super 3G LTE technologies by 2009, in preparation for an eventual network launch.

LTE is on the way, folks. Probably not anytime soon in the US, but Europeans will likely be rocking the high-speed tech in a couple years' time.

NTT DoCoMo

—
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• NTT DoCoMo is killing us; Begins testing Super 3G network
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• Google and NTT DoCoMo confirmed partners, possibly bringing Android handset to Japan
• Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo confirmed to be negotiating with Apple for iPhone
• NTT DoCoMo 3G FOMA subscribers exceed 40 million!

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There's another round of hyped-up buzz starting to build surrounding the imminent launch of the next-generation iPhone. The first hardware revision of the Apple iPhone will hit the US market with a 3G radio in tow, among other features - which should appease the masses that have lamented the  iPhone's lack of true high-speed data capabilities (although, the iPhone's EDGE data seems to compete with 3G connections due to processing and browser efficiency advantages).

We're dying to get our hands on a 3G iPhone, and the latest report indicates that Apple is indeed ramping up production of the second-gen iPhone. Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney believes that Apple has just put a 10 million unit-strong order for another round of iPhones. The significance being that the new batch of iPhones are most likely the 3G-addled version of the iPhone.

It wouldn't make sense for Apple to order another 10 million of the current iPhone, so if the new iPhone production order is true, it would most assuredly be an order for mostly (if not exclusively) 3G iPhones.

And, as another tiny gem from Apple, Dulaney indicates that the 3G iPhone will also employ a new display technology. The multi-touch capacitance touchscreen technology that has been used to tremendous success in the iPhone might just be mated to an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display on the 3G iPhone. The use of an OLED display should grant the 3G iPhone to shed some girth - a thinner OLED display panel ultimately means a thinner 3G iPhone. The OLED display also lacks a backlight, making it significantly more power-efficient than the current LCD display and allowing for increased battery performance - especially important, considering the greater battery drain imposed by 3G/HSDPA chipsets.

So, the next-generation, 3G iPhone is most likely set to start production. And, superior yet, the 3G iPhone should also be toting an OLED display. We're crossing our fingers for the latter rumor to pan out. Oh, and let's not forget Kevin Rose's prediction that the 3G iPhone will rock two-way video calling. Stay tuned….

[Via: iPodObserver]

—
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• Apple Store starts prepping for iPhone launch with giant iPhone displays!
• Apple launches UK iPhone site

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Carl Icahn's dream has finally come true, Motorola is going to split into two separate companies. No date for the breakup has been given. Full press release after the jump.

[Via: PR News Wire]

Motorola, Inc.
(NYSE: MOT) today announced that the Company's Board of Directors has
commenced a process to create two independent, publicly-traded companies.
Today's decision follows the Company's January 31, 2008 announced
evaluation of the structural and strategic realignment of its businesses
and represents affirmative steps to position its Mobile Devices and
Broadband & Mobility Solutions businesses for success, while creating value
for all Motorola shareholders.

“Our decision to separate our Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility
Solutions businesses follows a review process undertaken by our management
team and Board of Directors, together with independent advisors,” stated Greg
Brown, Motorola's president and chief executive officer. “Creating two
industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored
capital structures, and increased management focus - as well as more
targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders.”

Based on current plans, the creation of the two stand-alone businesses
is expected to take the form of a tax-free distribution to Motorola's
shareholders, subject to further financial, tax and legal analysis,
resulting in shareholders holding shares of two independent and
publicly-traded companies:

– The Mobile Devices business is an industry leader in multi-mode,
multi-band communications products and technologies. The business
designs, manufactures and sells mobile handsets and accessories
globally with integrated software solutions that incorporate the
latest personal communications technologies. It also licenses a
portfolio of intellectual property.
– The Broadband & Mobility Solutions business includes Motorola's
Enterprise Mobility, Government and Public Safety, and Home and
Networks businesses. These businesses manufacture, design, integrate,
and service voice and data communication solutions and wireless
broadband networks for enterprises and government and public safety
customers worldwide. These businesses also provide end-to-end digital
and World wide web Protocol (IP) video solutions, cellular and high speed
broadband network infrastructure, cable set-top receivers, and
associated customer premise equipment for residential and commercial
wireless network system access.

“Our priorities haven’t changed with today's announcement,” added
Brown. “We remain committed to improving the performance of our Mobile
Devices business by delivering compelling products that meet the needs of
customers and consumers around the world. As part of that effort, we have
undertaken a global search for a new chief executive officer for the Mobile
Devices business. We believe strongly in our brand, our people and our
intellectual property, and expect that the Mobile Devices business will be
well-positioned to regain market leadership as a focused, independent
company.”

The completion of any separation transaction would be subject to
certain customary conditions, including implementation of inter-company
agreements, filing of required documents with the Securities and Exchange
Commission and receipt of an view of counsel or a ruling from the
Internal Revenue Service as to the tax-free nature of any transaction. The
Company expects that the separation of its businesses, if consummated,
would take place in 2009. The Company noted that there can be no assurance
that any separation transaction will ultimately occur or, if one does
occur, its terms or timing.

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Breaking News: American college students don't know their geography
• Motorola announces business reorganization plan - struggles to cut costs amid huge lay-offs
• Official: Motorola considering getting rid of its mobile phones division
• Motorola insider: Zander and Brown to blame for Motorola handset division's failure
• New Motorola CEO takes control of handset division - Greg Brown takes reigns of cellphone business

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