Ron Garriques, Motorola's executive vice president and president of mobile devices, has resigned his position, effective immediately. Garriques already announced his new position at Dell as the head of the company's consumer division. Motorola will allocate his responsibilities to Ray Roman, SVP of global sales and Terry Vega SVP of global devices. While the move to Dell comes as a bit of a surprise, Garriques departure from Motorola is not entirely unexpected: The company's latest attempts at iconic handsets have paled since the introduction of its hit phone, the RAZR.
Late last year Garriques remained upbeat about upcoming RAZR spinoffs like the KRZR, RIZR and the Z8, even calling them "wickedly cool" and "wow" during investors' conference calls. While those phones don't have the same buzz as their predecessor, the handset maker did win some applause last week at 3GSM with the introduction of two Motorola Q's--one that's HSDPA-ready and the other, which is GSM/EDGE compatible. That said, most analysts believe Motorola has a tough slog ahead: "Motorola is missing out on growth in the smartphone market," Ovum's Michael Garner said in a research note. "It is struggling on profitability at the low end and its mid-range portfolio is not strong enough to carry it."
For more on Garriques' move to Dell:
- see this article from Seeking Alpha
- check out this article about Dell exec's fleeing