> the firm's insistence on supporting every software platform

"Insistence" implies there was a strategy. "Indecision" would be a better word, surely?

Goodbye, Moto...

...they'll finally put out a phone with a usable UI.

Maybe not.

Let the flame war begin...

When they were dropped by Apple, for the CPU the Mac, surely that should have told them that they had lost the plot.

Surely all they need to do is paint an old, rubbish phone pink and it'll sell like hotcakes, making them a profitable company... oh.

Erm... gold then?... oh.

This looks like the beginning of the end.

hopefully those stupid "Hello moto" ads will disappear as well.

It's not just that they support so many platforms - but the only compelling Motorola phones I have seen in years has been the RAZR V8/V8i, which was good for while it lasted. Plus, the lineup is very patchy and they aren't present at some crucial price points - which I think matters in developing economies like India.

They need to emulate Nokia - a lot of phones, at every price point in the market.

Their phone UI has been awful for years. The handsets always look nice, and have some good ideas - but the overall look and feel makes me never ever want another Moto handset ever again.

"When they were dropped by Apple, for the CPU the Mac"

Hello? Not every item of news related to technology is about Apple. Besides, Motorola spun out their semiconductor business a while back; this has barely anything to do with that.

"When they were dropped by Apple, for the CPU the Mac, surely that should have told them that they had lost the plot."

It was the other way round. Moto fired Apple after a Steve Jobs screaming fit at Chris Galvin.

And Moto screwed Apple royally. They had to overclock the G4 (remember the Wind Tunnel?) until the G5 came along (for desktops) and until they moved to Intel (for notebooks).

I believe the G5 was made by IBM

Motorola just didn't screw Apple, but themselves and their investors as well. Lose a customer and lose revenue.

I use a year-old pre-3G RAZR. It's an ok phone and of better build quality than most. The lack of software functionality lets it down, but I personally wouldn't consider anything that's either bigger or doesn't have a flip.

The two big non-software bugs are the way it has outside mounted buttons that stay live when its closed (why!) and it's refusal to recharge off a vanilla USB cable.

I wonder what will happen to the old Symbol business in this deal?

I've never seen a Motorola phone that was worth squat. Crap UI makes it next to useless. They'd be better off selling the unit to the Chinese.

It's apparently on the cards for wireless network infrastructure, so maybe now it might happen for the rest of the business. Depends what the canadian government says though.