However, Motorola is caught in a balancing act between investing properly in the new handset portfolio and hoping for enough success with this year's phones in H1 to avoid more redundancies.
Given the length and depth of the handset problems, it's increasingly difficult to see why shareholders should see logic in keeping the divisions together. Are there really valuable synergies between the other divisions and a handset business that is in such difficulty‾ Or would it be better to break the company up‾
There has been speculation about who might buy the handset division. We think that a sale is unlikely. But there might be interest in a Sony Ericsson style joint venture.
Martin Garner, Mobile Director at Ovum