Motorola Buys 3LM, Chases Corporate Buyers of Android Phones.

"In its first acquisition since its spin-off, Motorola Mobility announced it has bought Three Laws Mobility (3LM), a stealthy startup by ex-Google employees that builds security software for Android devices. The acquisition will help Motorola as it looks to expand the presence of Android into corporate settings."

Motorola splits into two companies, Jha pins hopes on Android.

"Motorola (NYSE:MOT) officially divided into two, publicly traded companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions, bringing to fruition a breakup that was three years in the making.

Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha, who has brought the company back to relevance thanks to his reliance on Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform, will lead the mobile devices and set-top box units, while Greg Brown will head Motorola Solutions, comprised of the enterprise mobility and iDEN network units."

Motorola Cuts Could Be Bad News for Windows Mobile.

"Motorola will soon lay off as much as 50 percent of its handset division, according to mobile industry blog, PhoneScoop, citing an unnamed source said to be familiar with Motorola’s plans. The post also claims that Motorola will skip the CTIA Wireless trade show in April, and will slash the number of new phones it releases this year down to a dozen. And going forward, at least according to PhoneScoop, the company will only make Google Android-based smartphones. (Microsoft has already removed Motorola from the list of Windows Mobile smart phones on its website.)"

Good aims to manage all enterprise mobile devices.

"Enterprises don't want to have to use two different management systems to support mobile devices in the warehouse and smartphones for executives, and so Good Technology, with sister company Symbol, plans to offer products that can support all types of mobile devices... Since Motorola acquired Good last year, Good has been working on ways to combine its enterprise e-mail offering with products from Symbol, which was also acquired by Motorola in 2007."

Motorola Announces Management Solution for WiMAX and Mobile Devices.

"Motorola, Inc... today unveiled its next generation NBBS device management system. With the new 5.0 version of NBBS, Motorola has extended its industry leading device management solution to serve wireless carrier needs – enabling broadband customer premises equipment (CPE), femtocell and mobile device management for WiMAX, GSM/UMTS and CDMA operators. With the new version of NBBS, carriers can accelerate the introduction of new services and devices."

YouTube - Motorola Z8 firmware update (FOTA) demo.

"See how to update your Motorola Z8's software with the latest feature enhancements using Firmware Over-the-Air (FOTA) update technology."

HP and Motorola reaffirm deal on Bitfone client.

[the following information is from June 11 --
also see a related post from March that announced
Motorola replaces Bitfone with Red Bend client for FOTA]

"Motorola has not ditched the Bitfone mobile device management client from HP in favor of Red Bend’s and still uses it on some of its phones, just as it will continue to use the Bitfone server on the back end...

'Motorola has a strong relationship with both companies... While I cannot share the details of our business relationships, we plan to continue to use both companies' technology in our handset portfolio and continue to use HP/Bitfone as our FOTA server partner.'...

What some industry pundits suggest is that Motorola is retaining the Bitfone client for handsets running an RTOS, but will use Red Bend on its smart phones on Linux. If correct, that still leaves the question of which it will ship on the Windows Mobile smart phones it produces for the business market, not to mention the Symbian phone it unveiled at 3GSM earlier this year.

HP bought Bitfone to use the technology on its iPAQ range of handheld devices, which run the Windows Mobile OS, though it also positions it as a broader, heterogeneous offering to support whatever smart phone OSes corporate customers require."

Motorola to acquire Leapstone Systems.

"Motorola, Inc. has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire privately held Leapstone Systems, Inc. Leapstone is a leading communications software developer that provides a unified platform for rapidly creating, managing and delivering converged video, voice and data service bundles across multiple networks and devices."

And from the Leapstone website:
"Operators need a solution that allows them to deploy new services in a timely and cost-effective manner. CCE contentMANAGER presents a single point of integration between third-party content and both the business and network infrastructures of the operator...

CCE contentMANAGER is used by operators to acquire, package and price content. Content can be acquired from multiple sources, including third-party application repositories and vendor catalogs...

Data pertaining to the devices an operator supports (e.g. device manufacturer and model, display characteristics and KB of memory) is received and processed by CCE contentMANAGER. Each piece of content is mapped to the devices on which it operates, and each subscriber is associated with one or more devices. This ensures subscribers are only presented with content that will execute properly on their device be a mobile, personal computer or a set-top-box...

Content activation involves the association of a subscriber with one or more subscriber classes - which in turn activates any price-plan packages previously associated with the subscriber class during price plan packaging. Activation requests may be received from back-office systems or self-subscription portals. CCE contentMANAGER also manages the customer account hierarchy including child accounts for kids and other family members. It manages the subscriber's individual profile for preferences, opt-ins (Sci-Fi Fan, home building, ads, special promotions, etc.), pin resets, configuring spending limits, etc. "

Motorola to announce iPhone competitor.

"Motorola CEO Ed Zander has given notice that Motorola is set to announce a direct competitor to Apple’s iPhone... Due to be formally announced next Tuesday, he described it as a 'media monster'."

Motorola's mobile smell-o-phone.

"Mobile phone manufacturer Motorola wants to make using your phone a more fragrant experience."

Motorola replaces Bitfone with Red Bend client for FOTA.

"Red Bend Software Inc has replaced Bitfone Corp as the provider of client software for firmware-over-the-air delivery to mobile phones from Motorola Inc, in what looks like fallout from Bitfone’s December acquisition by Hewlett-Packard Co... in addition to Motorola, Red Bend’s FOTA client is also in use by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and BenQ, as well as smaller players such as Sharp and NEC, with only Samsung among the tier-1 players preferring to plough its own furrow right now... Red Bend took the decision almost two years ago to drop out of the FOTA server market, preferring instead to work with any server that supported the OMA DM standard. As such it can talk to servers from companies like mFormation and Synchronica, as well as the Bitfone server, back in an operator’s or handset manufacturer’s network... With mFormation and Synchronica focusing on FOTA server development and Bitfone now absorbed into HP, said Grauballe, only InnoPath Software Inc remains as an independent developer of both server and client technology."

Oh No Moto! Profit falls 48%, job cuts.

Motorola "reported that its fourth-quarter profit fell 48 percent and the company will cut 3,500 jobs3, as it looks to improve operating costs."

Motorola buys mobile software maker Good Technology.

"Cell phone maker Motorola Inc. said Friday it is buying Blackberry rival Good Technology Inc., a deal that should boost the prospects for its new Q device as consumer demand for e-mail phones explodes... The deal underscores efforts by the world's second-largest handset manufacturer to sell more business-oriented mobile devices. In September, the Schaumburg, Ill., company agreed to the $3.9 billion purchase of Symbol Technologies Inc., a maker of portable bar code scanners and customized handheld computers."

Motorola's open source mobile Java initiative.

"Motorola has called on the Java ME (Mobile Edition) community to work together to create a complete open source Java ME software stack licensed under the Apache License 2.0 model. The move is designed to reduce fragmentation in the Java ME platform, which in turn will offer greater efficiencies for application developers."

Motorola acquires Symbol: It's about the channel.

"At a product level, Motorola gets a competitive line of ready-for-the-enterprise handheld devices, some of which are ruggedized. All of these devices are designed for verticalized business applications and not as consumer products. Also in the toolbox is enterprise-class wireless infrastructure that makes Motorola competitive with the likes of Cisco on the WLAN side of the business. Throw in some barcode scanners, RFID equipment and a few other pieces, and Motorola will be the first vendor to have mobile enterprise solutions for everything from the shop floor to the checkout counter and all the way to the executive boardroom."

Motorola offers open source mobile phone framework.

"Motorola will release the framework and sample test cases for the Mobile Information Device Profiles (MIDP) 3.0 specification as a freely available download. The company has set up a site to host the framework and sample test cases."