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Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been radio-related communication equipment such as two-way radios, consumer Walkie-talkie, Cellular network, Cellular phones, satellite communicators, pagers, as well as and semiconductors. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, Motorola was split into two independent public companies: Motorola Solutions (its legal successor) and Motorola Mobility (spun off), on January 4, 2011.
Motorola designed and sold wireless network equipment such as Cellular network transmission and signal amplifiers. Its business and government customers consisted mainly of wireless voice and broadband systems (used to build private networks), and public safety communications systems like Astro and Dimetra. Motorola's home and broadcast network products included , digital video recorders, and network equipment used to enable video broadcasting, computer telephony, and high-definition television. These businesses, except for set-top boxes and , became part of Motorola Solutions after the split of Motorola in 2011.
Motorola's mobile phone handset division was a pioneer in cellular telephones. Also known as the Personal Communication Sector (PCS) prior to 2004, it pioneered the "mobile phone" with the first truly mobile "brick phone" DynaTAC, "flip phone" with the MicroTAC as well as the "clam phone" with the StarTAC in the mid-1990s. It had staged a resurgence by the mid-2000s with the RAZR, but lost market share in the second half of that decade, as the company's one-hit wonders were not enough to reinstate Motorola as a leader. Later it focused on smartphones using Google's Android mobile operating system, the first released product being Motorola Droid in 2009. The handset division was later spun off into Motorola Mobility.
Paul Galvin wanted a brand name for Galvin Manufacturing Corporation's new car radio, and created the name "Motorola" by linking "motor" (from motor car) with "ola" (from Victrola), which was also a popular ending for many companies at the time, e.g. Moviola, Crayola. The company sold its first Motorola branded radio on June 23, 1930, to Herbert C. Wall of Fort Wayne, Indiana, for $30.genealogy@acpl.lib.in.us new-sentinel-march-14-1958 microfilm The Motorola brand name became so well known that Galvin Manufacturing Corporation later changed its name to Motorola, Inc., in 1947.Harry Mark Petrakis, The Founder's Touch: The Life of Paul Galvin of Motorola (Chicago: McGraw-hill, 1965), 58–93
Galvin Manufacturing Corporation began selling Motorola car-radio receivers to police departments and municipalities in November 1930. The company's first public safety customers (all in the U.S. state of Illinois) included the Village of River Forest, Village of Bellwood Police Department, City of Evanston Police, Illinois State Highway Police, and Cook County (Chicago area) Police.
Many of Motorola's products have been radio-related, starting with a battery eliminator for battery powered radios (during the burgeoning electrification of rural homes), through the first handheld walkie-talkie in the world in 1940, defense electronics, Cellular network infrastructure equipment, and mobile phone manufacturing. In the same year, the company built its research and development program with Dan Noble, a pioneer in FM radio and semiconductor technologies, who joined the company as director of research. The company produced the hand-held AM SCR-536 radio during World War II, which was vital to Allied communication. Motorola ranked 94th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.
Motorola went public in 1943,Motorola Solutions History, "A Legacy of Innovation: Timeline of Motorola History Since 1928." and became Motorola, Inc. in 1947. At that time Motorola's main business was producing and selling televisions and radios.
In 1969, Neil Armstrong spoke the famous words "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" from the Moon on a Motorola transceiver.
In 1973, Motorola demonstrated the first hand-held portable telephone.
In 1974, Motorola introduced its first microprocessor, the 8-bit MC6800, used in automotive, computing and video game applications."Motorola: 75 Years of Intelligent Thinking", 2003, page 42 The 6800 was the basis for the more popular MOS Technology 6502 which was made by former Motorola employees. That same year, Motorola sold its television business to the Japan-based Matsushita – the parent company of Panasonic.
In 1980, Motorola's next generation 32-bit microprocessor, the MC68000, led the wave of technologies that spurred the computing revolution in 1984, powering devices from companies such as Apple, Commodore, Atari, Sun Microsystems, and Hewlett-Packard."Motorola – A Journey Through Time & Technology" pages 75 – 79
In September 1983, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the DynaTAC 8000X telephone, the world's first commercial cellular device. By 1998, cell phones accounted for two thirds of Motorola's gross revenue.John F. Mitchell, Time Magazine Milestones section, July 6, 2009, p.17
In 1986 Motorola acquired
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On January 29, 1988, Motorola sold its Arcade, New York facility and automotive alternators, electromechanical speedometers and tachometers products to Prestolite Electric.
In 1996, Motorola released the Motorola StarMax, which was a Macintosh clone that was licensed by Apple and it came with System 7. However, with the return of Steve Jobs to Apple in 1997, Apple released Mac OS 8. Because the clone makers' licenses were valid only for Apple's System 7 operating system, Apple's release of Mac OS 8 left the clone manufacturers unable to ship a current Mac OS version without negotiation with Apple. A heated telephone conversation between Jobs and then Motorola CEO Christopher Galvin resulted in the termination of Motorola's clone contract, the discontinuation of the Motorola StarMax, and the long-favored Apple being demoted to "just another customer" mainly for PowerPC CPUs. Apple (and Jobs) did not want Motorola to limit the PowerPC CPU supply so as retaliation, Apple and IBM expelled Motorola from the AIM alliance and forced Motorola to stop producing any PowerPC CPUs, leaving IBM to make all future PowerPC CPUs. However, Motorola was later reinstated into the alliance in 1998.
Neglect of the emerging digital cellular standards led to Motorola's end as the dominant leader in mobile phone handsets in the second half of the 1990s. In 1996 it fell behind Ericsson in the growing market for digital phones in the U.S. In 1998, Motorola was overtaken by Nokia as the world's biggest seller of mobile phone handsets. The company was also struggling in microchips (which together with cell phones accounted for the majority of Motorola's revenue), cellular infrastructure equipment, and the Iridium satellite project that it had invested in. Motorola sold some businesses during this period, including in 1999 a portion of its semiconductor business—the Semiconductor Components Group (SCG)-- and formed onsemi (then ON Semiconductor), whose headquarters were located in Phoenix, Arizona.
In June 2000, Motorola and Cisco supplied the world's first commercial GPRS cellular network to BT Cellnet in the United Kingdom. Motorola also developed the world's first GPRS cell phone.
In August 2000, Motorola acquired Printrak International Inc. for $160 million. In doing so, Motorola not only acquired computer aided dispatch and related software, but also acquired Automated fingerprint identification system software. With recent acquisitions from that year, Motorola reached its peak employment of 150,000 employees worldwide. Two years later, employment would be at 93,000 due to layoffs and spinoffs.
The company's handset division began using the "Hello Moto" tagline in advertizing in 2002 which later also became a signature ringtone.
In June 2005, Motorola overtook the intellectual property of Sendo for $30,000 and paid £362,575 for the plant, machinery and equipment.
In June 2006, Motorola acquired the software platform (AJAR) developed by the British company TTP Communications plc. Later in 2006, the firm announced a music subscription service named iRadio. The technology came after a break in a partnership with Apple Computer (which in 2005 had produced an iTunes compatible cell phone ROKR E1, and most recently, mid-2007, its own iPhone). iRadio was to have many similarities with existing satellite radio services (such as Sirius and XM Radio) by offering live streams of commercial-free music content. Unlike satellite services, however, iRadio content would be downloaded via a broadband internet connection. However, iRadio was never commercially released.
Greg Brown became Motorola's chief executive officer in 2008. In October 2008, Motorola agreed to sell its Biometrics business to Safran, a French defense firm. Motorola's biometric business unit was headquartered in Anaheim, California. The deal closed in April 2009. The unit became part of Sagem Morpho, which was renamed MorphoTrak.
On February 11, 2010, Motorola announced it would separate into two independent, publicly traded companies. The cell phone and cable television equipment businesses would spin off to form Motorola Mobility, while the remainder of Motorola, Inc., which comprised the government and enterprise equipment businesses, would become Motorola Solutions. The split was closed on January 4, 2011. Motorola Mobility was eventually acquired by Google on May 22, 2012. Google later sold Motorola Mobility's cable equipment business to Arris Group in December 2012, and Motorola Mobility itself to Lenovo on October 30, 2014.
Of eighteen leading electronics manufacturers in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics (October 2010), Motorola shared sixth place with competitors Panasonic and Sony.
Motorola scored relatively well on the chemicals criteria and has a goal to eliminate PVC plastic and Brominated flame retardants (BFRs), though only in mobile devices and not in all its products introduced after 2010, despite the fact that Sony Ericsson and Nokia were already there. All of its mobile phones were now PVC-free and it had two PVC and BFR-free mobile phones, the A45 ECO and the GRASP; all chargers were also free from PVC and BFRs.
The company was also increasing the proportion of recycled materials used in its products. For example, the housings for the MOTO W233 Renew and MOTOCUBO A45 Eco mobile phones contained plastic from post-consumer recycled water cooler bottles. According to the company's information, all of Motorola's newly designed chargers met the current Energy Star requirements and exceed the requirements for standby/no-load modes by at least 67%.
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