Motorola’s decision to split the company in two is not surprising. It reflects the difficulty some technology companies have adjusting to a mass market.
For years, companies that sold technology to business focused on features. The more bells and whistles they included, the more likely they would make the checklist of an IT buyer from a big company. That led to feature-itis, bloated products where the look and feel was almost an afterthought.
But when consumers started buying technology directly, they brought with them the sensibilities they had acquired buying cars, stereos, and hair dryers. They wanted function, but they also appreciated form. As mobile phones moved into the mass market, consumers quickly turned these devices into personal products and fashion accessories.
Some phone makers grasped that sooner than others. Nokia took the lead by producing an infinite variety of models for every taste. As Korean manufacturers began to move from commodity products to the higher end of the consumer market, they too paid more attention to aesthetics. Samsung and LG became players in the cell phone business, with LG displacing Motorola as the No.2 manufacturer of mobile phones.
Motorola was a pioneer of mobile communications, introducing “car phones” in the 1970s and its DynaTac “brick,” possibly the first truly portable phone, at 28 ounces, in 1983. The StarTAC was a leap forward in 1996, weighing just 3 ounces. The RAZR, introduced in 2004, was a runaway hit, but Motorola apparently didn’t realize it couldn’t sit on its hands. It was now in the hit business and should have provided new models every few months to attract consumers on the lookout for the latest and most fashionable phone. Instead, newRAZRs seemed to be slight variations on the previous one. As one blogger declared on CNET, “they’ve been selling the same model for the last four years.”
Breaking up the company is not an instant solution, but with the bottom line for the handset unit clearly dependent on consumer appeal, Motorola is not likely to take its eye off the bottom line as it clearly did in recent years.
The master of technology sales to consumers, of course, is Steve Jobs at Apple, which long ago understood that aesthetics matter. Under Mr. Jobs' scrutiny, Apple's Macs, iPods, and iPhones have set standards not just in appearance but in the way the technology interacts with the consumer. That is not a superficial achievement. Motorola’s new mobile company would do well to emulate Apple as best it can.