Motorola to Cut More Jobs in Mobile Division

Struggling Motorola is laying off 74 more workers from its mobile-phone division.

By Nancy Gohring
Wed, July 08, 2009

IDG News Service — Struggling Motorola is laying off 74 more workers from its mobile-phone division.

The company will let the people go from its Libertyville, Illinois, offices starting the last day of this month, according to a filing with the state. The office houses workers in Motorola's mobile-phone group.

The announcement follows layoffs of 3,000 people in the mobile group earlier this year. Nearly 500 of those workers were based in the Libertyville offices.

After failing to sell its mobile-phone division as the economy weakened, Motorola has continued to struggle to improve the group's performance. Despite having designed iconic, market-leading phones in the past, Motorola has failed recently to keep up with current competition. Its last big hit, the Razr, now has a reputation of a low-end phone, against competitors that make hot smartphones like the iPhone, the new Palm Pre and BlackBerry devices.

Late last year, Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of the mobile devices unit, said the company would focus on Android and Windows Mobile phones, cutting support for the other operating-system platforms that Motorola had used. At the time, analysts praised the decision, saying the company could do well by focusing its dwindling resources rather than spreading them too thin.

But the market continues to wait for Motorola to release new, innovative phones. Jha said recently that the company would release multiple Android phones during the fourth quarter. He also said it was still interested in spinning off the phone division, but that will depend in part on the economy.

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