<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, greg brown]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, greg brown]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/gregbrown http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/gregbrown <![CDATA[Motorola chief messages 3,000 employees: C YA]]> This is the layoff that matters. Motorola has already conceded to a demand by investment overlord Carl Icahn to spin off its money-losing mobile phone unit. Today's news is no surprise, but still: Motorola will ditch about 3,000 people through several agonizing waves of layoffs. Co-CEO Greg Brown is telling the press that Moto will save $800 million in 2009. In a conference call today, Brown's peer Sanjay Jha said Moto had been too focused on "bright, shiny objects." Now, the company will focus on dim, dull profits.

Update: AP's photo library actually gave us a photo of another Greg Brown altogether, taken for a story on voicemail etiquette. Having looked at all of the corporate headshots of Motorola's Brown, we're sticking with this guy — he'd probably do a better job running Motorola, too. (Photo by AP/Alan Diaz)

]]>
http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5071472&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[Former Motorola insider slams company's incompetence, reapplies for employment]]> moto.jpgIn what amounts to a public job application to Motorola CEO Greg Brown, Numair Faraz, former assistant to Razr creator Geoffrey Frost, slams the company and former CEO Ed Zander for astounding ineptitude. Catch the full story over at Gizmodo or see our 100-word version below.
After making repeated attempts to contact you via your office, I am forced to write this open letter to publicly air my grievances concerning Motorola.
Faraz continues:

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.

Zander ... seemed to care more about his golf score than running one of America's greatest corporations.

Many believe Ed Zander worked Geoffrey to death, putting the pressure of the fate of the company in his hands ... Ed Zander continued to reap the dividends of Geoffrey's work, and the company made billions in profit from overselling the RAZR. He had the audacity to say "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 — he got a big golden parachute, and exited out of the company.

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 that Corporate America can and should be; now, with people such as Zander and yourself, Motorola symbolizes the worst of Corporate America.

I've been there when Motorola's handset division was brought back from the brink of death 5 years ago; follow my advice, and we can do it again.

]]>
http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=373128&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[Why it's splitsville for Motorola]]> The cellular graveyardMotorola, mortally wounded, is spinning off its handset business in slow motion. CEO Greg Brown expects the deal to go through next year. There's no Razr on the horizon to spur sales, thanks to former CEO Ed Zander's overreliance on the model. In San Francisco cofeeshops, the popular theory is that Apple's iPhone killed Motorola. Nonsense. Motorola killed Motorola. The population of the Bay Area is 7.2 million; despite the appearance that every man, woman, and child here now has an iPhone, Apple will be lucky to have sold that many by now.

Motorola sells 20 times that many phones in a year. No, the real problem is that Samsung has taken market share from it in the U.S., where Motorola dominates, and Nokia is killing it in the developing world. And that's entirely Motorola's fault. Fixated by the high-end smartphones popular in the U.S., Motorola didn't sell enough cheap phones elsewhere. While we debate the relative virtues of locked and unlocked iPhones, billions of people wait to make their first telephone call ever. You can only sell so many phones to The 250 — even if they keep breaking them.

]]>
http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=372473&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[Motorola CEO Looking for Fresh Blood to Lead Battered Handset Division]]> A month after he personally seized the reins at Motorola's beleaguered handset division, CEO Greg Brown is already looking to hand off the responsibility—and maybe the flak?—to someone from outside. Maybe a new perspective is what it needs, all those RAZRs start to look the same after a while. Oh wait. [Into Mobile]

]]>
http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=363796&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[Motorola chief takes charge of phone unit]]> CEO Greg Brown is taking personal charge of the company's troubled cell-phone business. One wonders where he got that idea. Next thing we know, Motorola's board will be basing his pay on the number of cell phones he sells. Oh, what's that — they already do?

]]>
http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=352952&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[Motorola CEO Zander resigns]]> AP070108014005.jpgEd Zander is stepping down as CEO of cell-phone maker Motorola on January 1. He will be replaced by current president and COO Greg Brown. Zander plans to "go do the things that my wife and I have wanted to do now for years and years." One analyst calls the move a "slight positive" for the company. In its most recent quarter, Motorola had a 94 percent drop in profit — maybe it is time for some fresh blood, but promoting Zander's No. 2 hardly seems like the trick. (Photo by AP/Damian Dovarganes)

]]>
http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=328554&view=rss&microfeed=true