Motorola announces split

TROUBLED MOBILE PHONE MAKER Motorola has announced the timing for its plan to split itself into two.

Motorola had already announced that it would split in two in the first quarter. There will be Motorola Mobility, which will sell mobile phones and television set-top boxes, and Motorola Solutions, which will sell not liquids but wireless toys.

Co-CEO Greg Brown, who is headed for Motorola Solutions, said the split could happen as soon as January.

He expects revenue growth to fall in the range of four percent to five percent in 2011 and set a long-term growth target of five percent to eight percent.

The target is for a slower growth rate than Motorola Solutions' target for growth in a seven percent to eight percent range for 2010.

He said that this is because this year's projected revenue of $7.7 billion to $7.8 billion, looks unusually strong in comparison with very weak 2009 sales last year.

Brown also warned that revenue at its proprietary Iden network equipment business will fall to $300 million in 2011 from $400 million in 2010. This is because the technology is getting a bit old and Sprint Nextel is dumping it to look at something a bit younger.

Motorola Solutions gets most of its sales from the public sector, and already Cisco has indicated that it is losing a lot of money in this area.

But Motorola said it might be in a better position than Cisco because the majority of its public sector business is for public safety systems, which are seeing strength right now. Cisco sells to a broader public market where spending has been cut, Brown said. µ