Motorola brand to cease to exist

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/08/motorola-brand-killed-off-lenovo

John.

 

"1. Founded in 1928 as Gavlin Manufacturing Corporation, Motorola’s first ever product was a battery eliminator.

2. In 1930, the company introduced one of the first ever car radios, and the Motorola brand was born – with motor, representing the car, and ola, taken from the word, Victrola, representing sound. It wasn’t until 1947 when the company officially changed its name to Motorola. Its car radios were initially only available to Police departments in the US, and it further developed the technology to create a two-way communication device."

From: 15 facts you may not know about Motorola
http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2011/08/15/15-facts-you-may-not-know-about-motorola/

It's a sad day.

 

My dad worked there for 35 years. He only lasted that long because he was part of what was basically the only division of the company that was consistently profitable.

It is indeed sad, but not entirely unexpected. Motorola has been irrelevant since the original Droid, and I would daresay even the RAZR.

 

Was anyone surprised?

http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-market-share.jsp

In 2015, Lenovo had 5% market share, and Motorola accounting for 36% of sales of that Lenovo marketshare. Meaning Motorola sold 1.6% of all smartphones in 2015, completely insignificant, like a fart in a football stadium.

 

The Moto X started the push toward light skins instead of heavy Touchwizzy skins in non-Nexus devices. And the 2014 Moto X was the first flagship from a major OEM on the US market to shun the then-standard $650 price point.

RIP.

Edit: they're not killing "Moto," just the long name "Motorola." Not nearly as significant IMO.

 

If the bastards'd give us DROID 5 with physical keyboard... =( I don't really care what they call themselves. =/

 

Hopefully somebody will buy Motorola now that it`s demise is in the news, Even if it`s just for the brand name recognition.

John.

 

It seems they want Motorola, they just don't like the "long name"...

Moto or M is the future

 

Motorola as a brand isn't being shut down or put up for sale. They're just retiring the name "Motorola" for "Moto".

LG doesn't go by Lucky Goldstar anymore. Doesn't mean Lucky Goldstar is for sale.

 

I don't think I ever saw Lucky Goldstar as the name for LG hardware in the US, but I did hear later that was the full name, and then heard it changed.

They really didn't need to change the name, I didn't care, and I don't think anyone else did - we knew it as LG.

Lucky Goldstar is a cooler name, a brand name with weight and age. I think they threw away a good moniker from their history.

Same as they are doing with Motorola.

They could keep the long name, and just use the short names on products.

I think they threw away a lot of good will banked over almost 100 years by ending Motorola, for nothing.

 

On the other hand, their current branding didn't make much sense either. Saying "Motorola Moto X" rolls off the tongue about as well as saying "Chevrolet Chevy Malibu."

When was "Hello Moto" first used? Certainly long before the 2013 Moto line of phones, I think. "Moto" has been used as a popular shortening of "Motorola" for some time now.

 

That's what I said. Don't use the long name, just use the short name.

I don't hear people use the long name in conversation when discussing Moto phones any more than I hear people calling a Chevrolet a Chevy Chevrolet.

Do you think GM would be fiscally inept enough to kill the Chevrolet name, and rename the division Chevy? Come on man, think

You don't change the company name with so many years of good will under it - Motorola is a world wide brand - Lucky Goldstar, not so much

It makes no sense at all to change it to Moto, or M, or some other new name that means you now need to start building brand name recognition all over again with the next generation.

A conversation with a youth of the next decade...

"What's M?".

"It used to be Motorola, you know, that company that started the Radio and Communications revolution last century, that invented the Cell phone and Cell Tower technology. The Company that reinvented itself with Android phones - the Droid? Remember?"

"Yeah, I heard of Motorola in School, when we discussed WW II, I saw all their radios being used - the Walkie Talkies they invented, pretty cool stuff"

..."but who is "M"?...

It's unnecessary, fiscally inept, and foolish.

 

"Hello Moto" came out around the time this guy did - http://bgr.com/2010/12/23/throwback-thursday-motorola-v60/

 

MotoSharp!

 

Motorola (Galvin Company) High Tech from WW II



Robert Galvin - ran Motorola for 40 years, 1940-80's


Motorola Solutions Heritage Story


It looks like Motorola Solutions, which separated from Motorola Cellular in 2011, might still be able to carry on the Motorola name
http://www.motorolasolutions.com/

 

Motorola had some great commercials but honestly I couldn't stand their phones until the Nexus 6... the RAZR was pretty much impossible for me to use and was stupid fragile, the V300 I almost threw against the wall at work because it kept restarting on me, the T720 had the worst battery life of any phone I've ever used, and the DROID RAZR MAXX was sluggish and I had to get a refurb 20 days after my exchange period ended because it refused to connect to LTE anymore no matter what I did.

I don't really think anyone is going to have a problem recognizing Motorola by Moto, its been shortened to Moto for years.

 

That's odd, I had Motorola Cell phones since the original Brick, on through all the Flip Phones, and they all ran great. I think I only had 1 die on me early - a RAZR 2, and the replacement is still running today.

I never got a Droid, I don't use Verizon, but I did enjoy the commercials

Now that I know Motorola Solutions is still around, they can carry on the namesake business - radio communications - into the future.
http://www.motorolasolutions.com/

Maybe that's why the Cell Company dropped the Motorola name, so as to keep it true to the core business being carried on by Motorola Solutions.

If so they shouldn't have renamed it to Moto, they should have renamed it to Droid

 

Verizon is the one who paid for use of the Droid trademark so that wouldn't have worked. Lucasfilm trademarked it right before Verizon launched their first Droid phone.

 

Was that the same Goldstar that made a version of the 3DO game console?

 

Korea

 

While Motorola is a "og" in the phone game, they lost my respect over all their false promises, selling phones with unfinished features that they claimed were going to be finished, with false hopes of them releasing firmware for the next version of Android to come out.

That said, I still had fun with my Atrix, dual booting linux (for no real reason, just thought it was cool), playing with my old atrix Lapdock (which was cool as hell for the $60 I spent on it!) Really miss that phone just for all its unique features lol. Psh and when Iphone came out with a finger print scanner Apple fan boys raved about how Android was copying, psssh had that 2 years prior son (although not as efficient as modern finger print scanners)

Ok so my post went from bashing Motorola to praising them bwahahha

 

My last Motorola was the Defy, It had a widespread problem with the earphone not working, this included the new one i bought, so i returned it for a refund, so this turned me off Motorola, so i switched to HTC and Samsung.

John.

 

Motorola is a unique situation. I would bet the farm the reason for poor US side support is largely due to Verizon being in the business of selling phones and wanting low warranty claims.

 

I haven't had any hardware problems with my wife's 2013 Moto X or my 2014 Moto X.

The Defy dates from 2010, six years and two owners ago. You can't judge modern Motorola by it.

 

6 years gone already does not time fly, anyway it just show how a manufacture can loose a buyers confidence.

John.

 

There is a benchmark entry for a Motorola XT1650. Maybe Lenovo will use the name a while longer?

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Motorola-XT1650-smartphone-spotted-on-Geekbench.164845.0.html