The police and firefighters have turned it into a 60 billion company

It is true that in reality The iPhone did not completely kill Motorola, but it left it very touched. In 2007 their cell phones were selling like hotcakes. Their previous foldables, the RAZR, were part of popular culture thanks to the promotional agreements that made Paris Hilton, Eva Longoria Abril Lavigne or David Beckham They will pose proudly with them non-stop.

But then the iPhone arrived and things began to change for many traditional manufacturers. Nokia and Blackberry were never the same again, and something similar—although not as severe—happened to Motorola, which, faced with declining sales, decided to split into two different companies in 2008.

The “Motorola” of before is now Lenovo

The first of them, Motorola Mobilityit ended up being bought by Google in May 2012 and then to be repurchased by Lenovo in 2014. This manufacturer has kept the brand and has managed to revive that part of the business with a remarkable mobile catalogbut the original company went down a completely different path.

In fact, the firm has reinforced its proposal with the new Razrthe “mid-range” folding ones that present a certainly interesting option, especially for small cell phone lovers.

The popularity of these devices is not the same as in the past, but this year we experienced a nice nod: Paris Hilton, who was already the star of a limited edition with the original Razr 20 years ago, has returned again. At the beginning of the year we knew the Motorola Razr Plus Paris Hilton Editionvery pink, very “exclusive” and not cheap at all.

The real Motorola is now Motorola Solutions Inc.

But what is truly striking is that Motorola Solutions Inc.the “boring” part of the company that was split up in 2008, has emerged strongly from the situation. It has done so by focusing on what it already did well then: critical communications.

Their products have become a success among security forces and bodies, who use them massively in the United States, but also in countries such as Bulgaria, Brazil or the United Kingdom.

In fact, Bloomberg highlights that since they separated from Motorola Mobility the return for investors has grown by 1,000%more than double what the S&P 500 index has achieved, for example, and much more than what other companies such as Ericsson or Nokia have achieved, to which the iPhone did much more damage.

Motorola Solutions’ products are very varied, and range from body cameras for police forces to communication equipment for emergencies in health or fire departments and, lately (of course) drones.

Greg Brown, the company’s CEO, has achieved turn it into a 60 billion dollar giant. It has achieved this with a strategy in which acquisitions have been a fundamental part and have accelerated traditional organic growth, often much slower.

Brown’s path has not been easy, although the hardest part was that division at a time when the company was suffering a real financial hemorrhage: “we froze pensions, we laid off 15,000 people, we announced that we were getting out of the mobile phone business… which were the true identity of the company.”

He ended up surviving that and managed to revive the company precisely by returning to what it had become famous for: Motorola was already providing communication equipment to the police shortly after its founding in 1928, although we met it much later.

First, when he developed the famous Motorola 68000 processor which was part of legendary computers from Apple, Commodore or Atari. Then, in 1983, when it began its particular mobile revolution with the legendary DynaTAC 8000X.

The future of Motorola Solutions seems promising, although it is not without challenges. The company, which will turn 100 years old in 2028is now starting to integrate AI into its products.

This year they launched a body camera for law enforcement that uses AI to create automatically audio transcripts, provides directions to remote operators, and examines surveillance footage. It is the demonstration that that original Motorola – not the current mobile phone, which is now Lenovo – is still alive and well.

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