Motorola to offload half its Birmingham staff

Motorola is poised to axe half the staff at its design facility in Birmingham, as the mobile company tries to turn around its beleaguered mobile devices division. All the 121 staff at the facility were told Tuesday they are "at risk of redundancy". Motorola is proposing to make half of them redundant and said it may close the …

[Andy Worth]

That's unfortunate..

While I sympathise with those who will lose their jobs, I can hardly say that it's a surprise given that Motorola make perhaps the worst phones on the market. They were once the "top of the pile" back a couple of decades ago but fell behind by releasing phones with poor features and interfaces, concentrating solely on "fashion". I know hardly anyone who uses a Motorola and most people seem to regard them as very poor phones, even those who work in the industry.

They've attempted to redress the balance more recently, with their most recent releases having an updated (and thankfully slightly more intuitive) interface but it's very hard to get the mud off a name. There are too many good phones on the market to bother with the poor ones.

Sadly I doubt this will be the last of the job cuts, unless they pull their finger out.

[Ian]

Former Sendo Site

I presume that this is the building on the A45 as you approach the airport. In which case, it's the former Sendo operation, so it's already been through one death and resurrection.

[Tom Richardson]

No surprises

As a former Test Engineer for moto mobiles I can hardly say I'm surprised. Testers have no feedback into the design process and the designers I'm sure don't actually use their products. Lots of things that are great 'on paper' are horrible to use in practice. I've worked for a couple or carriers as well and Motorolas are pretty much a running joke in test departments these days. And yes, the Birmingham site is from the acquisition of Sendo, which was a bloody stupid move in the first place.

[James Pickett]

More unemployed

Given that Vodafone is also firing, you have to wonder what industry in the UK is making any money. I'm not surprised at Motorola, though. I bought a new PAYG mobile recently, and some of their models were available for under £20...

[pctechxp]

user interface ok, crap OS and baseband control software

I made the mistake of buying a V600 SIM free a few years back.

Had to constantly reset it as it would stop receiving texts and then I'd get a shedload once I'd reset it.

Also when making a call it could often not decide what frequency to use, just used to go dead when dialling and would take up to three attempts to make a call.

I hear that the RAZR had the same issues, of course I feel sorry for anyone losing their job but its not surprising when you cant get the basics right.

[Giles Jones]

Moto phones are rubbish

People only bought the Razr because it was thin, the actual interface was awful.

Motorola could get away with simple phones back in the days of mono LCD screens and mono ringtones. I had a Timeport and it was an ok phone if dull compared to Ericsson.

Motorola need good designs, a decent OS in the phone and to vastly improve their image in the mobile arena. As it stands they may as well pull out and just become a chipset vendor.

[Jim Benn]

Low expectations

I've never desired all the features of a modern phone, so for me Motorola has always been about the 'connection'. I would hate to see them leave the market, because (here in the US) their phones have always worked better (as a phone) than any other cell phones I've seen. I've mistakenly dropped them, and they still worked, and they usually pick up signal better than the folks around me (on other makes of phone). I guess I expect much less from a cell phone.

(I left my coat in the car.)

[Anonymous Coward]

decimation x 6.577!!!

decimate 6.577 times =

0.9 ^ 6.577 = 0.50009554366664035927846079510926

=~50%

so there :P

mines the one with "loggarivems 4 preskoolerz" in the pocket

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmmmm... how times change

I may be misremembering, but wasn't it Motorola's handset people who led the trend for (a) "zero defect" and (b) "offshoring", way back in the 20th century (mid 1980s maybe) when their handset design and manufacturing went from the USA to the subcontinent?????

Doesn't look like it did them much good medium term then? Current promoters of offshoring and promoters of the natural heir of zero defect, "six sigma", please note... some people know what you're up to, and you're up to no good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than the States

I would consider the folks at Birmingham fairly fortunate still, with the 90 day "warning" you can really make the necessary life changes or at least be thoroughly prepared for it. It appears that similar actions are considered for the Plantation facility and others in the U.S. according to http://thelaidoff.com but probably they'll see the axe only when it's about to hit their neck instead.

On the other hand, one could argue everyone at Motorola can see this coming for about 1/2 ~ 1 year now so whether it's 90 day warning or 2 weeks warning, it's all fair games.. One thing we know for sure is not to believe in the management straight talk of no layoff :P They'll do what's needed to turn things around (or at least try to save their own behind)..