Motorola plans to overhaul handset division, cut jobs

Motorola plans to overhaul its struggling cell phone division, cut jobs and simplify how it makes handsets. The Wall Street Journal reports that Sanjay Jha, the head of Motorola's handset division and its co-CEO, will be putting much more emphasis on developing top-of-the-line handsets that run Google's Android platform. The news comes one day before Motorola is expected to report its third quarter earnings.

Jha will likely detail the plans on the earnings call tomorrow, but the report indicated there would likely be thousands of layoffs associated with the decision to bet more on Android and abandon phones that run on some other platforms.

The handset maker has lost market share. It shipped 28.1 million units in the second quarter, down 21 percent from the first quarter of this year.
 
For more:
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)

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