Motorola doesn’t seem to be able to catch a break from Google, its new owner. Top executives from Google continue to make derogatory statements about Motorola handsets even after Google acquired the company in 2011. Several of Motorola’s top officials have been chucked out of the company through contract negotiations over the last year. This has led to the appointment of Guy Kawasaki, one of Apple’s most successful market campaigners. He is best known for the iconic Apple marketing campaigns for the Macintosh back in the eighties.
This latest move from Google is an attempt to revive a dying brand that has lost most of its market share to Samsung. This has eventually led to the utter dominance of Samsung in the Android market. Google had earlier chalked out a strategy that would ensure varying aristocracy every year in the Android market. This would imply that Google would favor HTC one year, LG the next and possibly another manufacturer the next, in order to maintain parity between different manufacturers. However, this was not to be as lackluster performance from HTC, Motorola and LG meant that the Android market has become Samsung’s monopoly. This was contrary to fears among the public, who thought Google acquiring Motorola would give it an insurmountable edge compared to other manufacturers.
In the recent past, Motorola’s position with respect to carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile has eroded completely and its handsets are found only at Verizon today. Motorola’s strategies in the recent past have backfired completely. From the setting up of an R&D and manufacturing base in Brazil to the concept of designing separate phone lines for different operators, Motorola has consistently adopted policies completely opposite to the direction in which the industry was heading. Apple and Samsung, on the other hand, have followed the strategy of creating a successful flagship phone that could be sold to several carriers around the world.
Motorola plans on adopting the same strategy, but critics argue that it is too little, too late. This is where the expertise of Kawasaki is likely to come into the picture. However, Google’s firing of several executives has already created a brain drain in the company and the manufacturer finds itself in a fix, unable to replace talent nor able to develop a counter strategy to perform an effective ramp up. The high end smartphone market has become very competitive as Apple and Samsung have hastened their development cycles for the same. It would be interesting to see how Google plans on reversing this trend.
