Ticked-off former Motorola 'insider' gives his two cents
'If only you had listened to me'
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An individual claiming to be a former advisor to deceased Motorola CMO Geoffrey Frost has attacked the mobe giant's management, accusing them of missed opportunities and closed minds.
A letter attributed to a Numair Faraz, published by Engadget, lays into both existing and outgoing management. Faraz claims responsibility for the RAZR handset as well as seeing the threat from Samsung back in 2003, and trying desperately to push the company towards social networking applications before the rest of the world had heard of them.
At that time, he claims, he was ignored by Ed Zander, the then CEO of the company, whom Faraz accuses of working Frost to death in 2005 while worrying more about golf scores than company profitability. Now, Faraz writes, he is being ignored by Ed Zander's replacement Greg Brown, and resorted to the open letter in the hope of communicating his ideas.
Those ideas include appointing a strong CEO to manage the newly-forming mobile division, and embracing Android as a single platform. He also recommends signing up the band Daft Punk whose music, apparently, appeals to everyone in the world regardless of age and demographic.
In recent weeks many Motorola employees have been keen to explain why the company is failing, and what they believe should have been done, but few have been so public about it. Faraz has some insight into the workings of Motorola and takes the failure of the company personally - though in common with every other Motorola employee we've spoken to, he takes no responsibility for that failure.
It's hard to imagine how the management at Motorola could be deaf to every employee screaming at them to get a decent software strategy, but such things are possible. As Faraz modestly puts it: "I was there when Motorola's handset division was brought back from the brink of death five years ago. Follow my advice, and we can do it again." ®
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COMMENTS
Hector Ruiz To The Rescue?
NOT!
He's the main individual that bought Motorola to their knees! Yep, Chris Galvin is an idiot brat that screwed up, but look at Hector's track record at AMD / Spansion, LLC.
Go figure!
Bean counters at the top
I think the problem stems from having people at the top who are motiviated purely by money, plus a reward system, built around share options and performance related bonuses, that actively encourages shorttermism.
Whatever you think of the iPhone, I think it clear that Jobs is motivated by more than money - he obviously has some emotional investment in producing stuff he thinks is cool.
Quaterly results, strategic decisions and leadership
Long term strategic decisions require executives with vision and leadership. Ultimately somebody has to put their arse on the line and lead the company through a series of poor quarterly results until the long term strategy bears fruit.
This involves risk for the company and for the career prospects of the executives involved. It's much easier for everyone to coast along avoiding risk making short term decisions based upon quarterly results.
PS. I have always found the user interface of Motorola phones to be awkward. I never understood why it took so many steps to do anything on most of them.
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