Handset maker Motorola has reportedly decided to focus on the open-source Android platform, dropping most of its other cell phone designs – as well as more employees.
“They were like a drunk asking for another drink in the software area,” Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney explained to Cult of Mac.
After laying-off 10,000 employees and unsuccessfully attempting to regain its past glory, the Schaumburg, Ill.-based company will cut at least four handset platforms, choosing to concentrate on Android and two other handsets, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources Wednesday.
The announcement could come Thursday, when Motorola reports earnings.
Dulaney said Motorola’s new CEO Sanjay Jha’s cuts haven’t gone enough.
“They checked into rehab but still have a bottle of liquor hidden under the bed,” the analyst said. Dulaney said Motorola should have made more cuts in the supported platforms. He suggested the handset manufacturer should have dropped another handset design.
“When you have the financial crisis that Moto has, you have to get very, very serious about cutting back,” he said. Dulaney suggested Motorola pare down to Android and Microsoft.
Motorola lost $12 on each of the 28 million handsets the firm sold during the previous quarter, the newspaper reported.
Avi Greengart, analyst with Current Analysis, said the move is a return to Motorola’s original game plan of pushing out great handsets.
“Motorola really fell off the wagon, with no one making the hard decisions on which platforms and markets to support. Moto ended up supporting just about every major OS, sometimes in several variants, doing none of them particularly well,” Greengart told Cult of Mac.
One unanswered question is how the move could affect the roll-out of new handset designs, such as the Android phone Motorola had planned to introduce in 2009.
The phone reportedly includes social-networking features and a design that could outlclass the G1, the first Android phone introduced by T-Mobile. The G1 has been described as “clunky,” according to analysts that spoke with Cult of Mac.
