Why is Motorola so Stuffed?

Motorola announced frighteningly bad results yesterday. Market share, revenues and earnings each caved in. Once the leader of the mobile handset space, they now struggle in 4th place on an anaemic 8% world share.

What went so wrong? Design darling - design. Not since the Razr, launched earlier this century, have they managed to produce any kind of a handset hit. Fashion and design are the key components to the consumer electronics space and Motorola failed on both counts. Frightening. The rest is history. 

Their new CEO, recently drafted from Qualcomm (who are not exactly known for their consumer design skills), announced that their future will rest on 3 operating systems - one of which is not surprisingly Google's Android, the latest mobile O/S pin-up.

O/S's are important but design is more important and until Motorola gets back the flair for edgy, sleek, bold, black or silver, ice cool handsets they will keep sinking. Shame - they should have been the Apple of the cellphone space. Too late for that - iPhone.