Feb 12 2008
Microsoft Heart Motorola?
If you have been following tech news lately, you might have noticed that Motorola is in a world of hurting right now. Motorola had a meteoric rise in 2004 and 2005 with the RAZR. The only problem was, they forgot to back it up with something even better. As a result Motorola’s Mobile Phone Division is hurting, bad.
So bad in fact that the company that invented the mobile phone industry is potentially shopping the struggling division to potential suitors. We’ve heard announcements from companies like LG, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson saying they aren’t interested in acquiring it. This makes complete sense, afterall they are direct competitors and there is no value for them in acquiring something they already have. It would be as logical as Apple acquiring the failing Microsoft Zune division.
What about an acquisition from a large player that is on the sidelines of the mobile phone industry though? There’s Google and there’s Microsoft. Google doesn’t make physical devices, so I wouldn’t think they’d bite. Microsoft, however is perfect. They make devices like the XBox and Zune, and they want to go head to head with Apple. This acquisition would give them the jump start that they need.
If you ask me, acquiring Motorola’s $12 billion division is a smarter move than trying a hostal take over of Yahoo! for $44.6 billion or more.
Let’s look it it this way. Let’s say Microsoft buys Motorola. They develop a killer web enabled phone that truly competes with the iPhone (I’m not talking about how the Zune thinks it competes with the iPod). This is completely feasibly considering that Microsoft sells millions of WinMo-enabled devices a year. Now if they make this new phone with killer web apps that integrate with Microsofts online business. It will drive consistent traffic there. People will become accustomed to going to Live.com or MSN.com or whatever it is they are currently calling it. It will drive more consumers resulting in them getting a larger piece of the online revenue pie.
Now, I’m going to be honest. I don’t necessarily like Microsoft. I stay away from them as much as possible, because they don’t do anything original or truly innovative. They try to be everything to everyone. If the PC industry was the car industry, Microsoft would be a Ford, while companies like Apple would be Ferrari’s, and systems like Linux would be Toyotas.
So why would I want to give this great and logical idea away? Well corporate competition creates benefits for the consumer, better and cheaper products. I’m a consumer.




