If I were Motorola this week, I’d be feeling a bit nauseated. The company took some particularly bad hits this week — hits that would take the wind out of almost anyone’s sails. Let’s give you a rundown of the fun this week at Moto.
Good news, everyone: Motorola’s co-CEOs have declined to take their bonus for 2008. On the surface, that sounds like a great thing; Motorola can use that money to help the company out. However, in reality, the bonuses were mainly from stock awards, which would be virtually worthless considering Motorola’s current stock price.
The bad news: Motorola had to shut down one of its plants in China and let go about 5000 employees. This should be another good cost-cutting measure for Moto. And it is going to need that money to pay its legal fees because Motorola is being sued by its former CFO for retaliatory discharge (usually this refers to a firing in response to an employee acting in the public interest). If his allegations are true, and Moto is firing people who are looking out for the public interest, it is time to be afraid of who they are keeping around.
That is just one week of Moto news from this year. Who knows what will happen next week? My predictions for next week: 1. The Moto RAZR will have a huge product recall due to the phones melting after being exposed to air; 2. Moto will be sued for trademark infringment by Warner Bros. for using a bat-styled logo too similar to that of the Batman, and 3. There will be an outrage by the remaining employees when they are told that they will be charged an “existence fee” for the privilege of being on Moto property – a plan actually secretly meant to get people to voluntarily quit.
If none of these happen next week, it wil be a good week for Moto. On the other hand, if any one of the three happen, I am heading to Vegas.
Read: [CEOs turn down bonuses]
Read: [Plant closing]
Read: [Ex-CFO sues Moto]
It is a shame that Motorola just couldn't come up with something after the RAZR, however, take a look at the instructional videos on RAZR v3 on HandBookLive.com (under Electronics). There are some 20 chapters on how to use the phone. From how to transfer contacts to SIM card, to assigning rings and photos to contacts, as well as pairing it to the bluetooth headset.
Any company that wants to compete for customers should be focusing not just on how to sell their product, but on how to help customers.