Commentary

Dell Says No Thanks To Notion Of Buying Motorola's Mobile Unit

Dell CEO Michael Dell said that his company is "more focused on the computer business" and not so focused on mobile phones. In other words, Dell doesn't want to touch Motorola with a ten-foot pole. But who would be interested in Motorola?

Dell CEO Michael Dell said that his company is "more focused on the computer business" and not so focused on mobile phones. In other words, Dell doesn't want to touch Motorola with a ten-foot pole. But who would be interested in Motorola?I had to laugh when I saw the comments from Michael Dell. Dell has spent the better part of a year reorganizing itself after a string of bad quarters in the PC market. It's been focusing so closely on its PC business, that it has all but shunned any other sort of business. It killed off its PDA business, killed off its MP3 player, and has really hunkered back into its core competencies.

People have been saying for months now that Dell needs to re-enter the mobile market with a strong smartphone. The first rumors spoke of the sacred Gphone. But Dell quashed speculation that it was working with Google on a smartphone. Others thought Dell might buy Palm back when those rumors were running rampant. Now that Motorola's handset business is on the block, it seemed a logical question to ask of Mr. Dell. "We really don't comment on rumors and speculation," Michael Dell told Reuters in an interview. "We are more focused on the computer business." And that, as they say, is that. (Wouldn't Dell be kicking himself if HP were to buy Motorola?)


More Mobility Insights

White Papers

More >>

Reports

More >>

Webcasts

More >>

So if not Dell, who?

Not Nokia. It doesn't need Motorola. Samsung, LG, and Sony Ericsson are doing just fine on their own. Each has increased market share over the last 12 months. None of them needs Motorola's brand name, and they all already make quality handsets. Reports brought up the idea of a Chinese manufacturer picking up Motorola, but none of them has stepped forward publicly. That doesn't leave too many phone OEMs left.

Investors could certainly lump together the necessary funds and buy the division. As much as I'd prefer to see Motorola's handset business be bought by a company that already has its feet wet in the mobile industry, investors are probably who will end up owning Motorola.

Wait, I know. Why doesn't Google buy Motorola? That way it can compete better than MicroHoo.


Related Reading




Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

InformationWeek encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, InformationWeek moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing/SPAM. InformationWeek further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.
T-Shirt Giveaway T-Shirt Giveaway: Each week we're selecting one great comment from our readers. The author of the comment will receive an InformaitonWeek Community t-shirt. So get posting!
Subscribe to RSS

Resource Links