Motorola Morale, An All-Time Low (MOT)

Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) must be the worst place to work in the entire mobile communications sector.  It is one thing that the company is issuing yet another earnings warning .  But the layoff announcement is the icing on the cake after rounds and rounds of prior restructuring efforts.  This is reminiscent of the old bumper stickers from the 1980’s, although you have to insert the world "Motorola" in place of "Michigan" … "Would the last person to leave Motorola please turn out the lights!"

Somehow analysts were still looking for a gain of $0.03 EPS in thislast quarter, and revenue was supposed to be $7.51 billion.  Nomore.  The company warned that operating results would be a loss of-$0.07 to -$0.08 EPS.  The company now expects revenue of$7.0 billion to $7.2 billion.

If you work at Motorola, there’s now an even better chance you won’twork there for much longer.  The ailing mobile communications provideris slashing another 4,000 jobs.  These cuts are said to be primarily inthe Mobile Devices business segment.  Its stated breakdown isapproximately 3,000 positions tied to the Mobile Devices business and1,000 tied to corporate functions and other business units. 

After following this company in an endless restructuring, it is a wonder that there is anyone left to fire.  The only people left working there must be those who are inverted in their house value to loan ratios in Schaumburg or those who are on short-time in an old pension plan.  Otherwise, there cannot be any incentive to work at this company.

The company claims that the actions so far will bring the cost savingsto about $1.5 billion in 2009.  At the end of September 2008, thecompany had over $7 billion in cash and equivalents and another $1.39billion in long-term investments.

You can imagine the new conversation management ties to communicate at lunch every day from here on out:

"Everyone, there’s good news and bad news about lunch."
"What’s the bad news?"
"There’s nothing but horse manure left to eat."
"Oh no, what’s the good news?"
"There’s plenty of it."

Jon C. Ogg
January 14, 2009