Wireless

Motorola is looking to sell its business for TV set-top boxes and network equipment for about $4.5 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday.

The newspaper cites people familiar with the matter who say Motorola is in the early stages of finding a buyer for the business unit. Potential buyers include private-equity firms and competing equipment makers.

Motorola representatives declined to comment, citing a company policy not to comment on speculation or rumors.

The company has three major units: mobile devices, enterprise mobility, and home and networks mobility. And all three business units have been struggling over the past year. It had planned to spin off its mobile-device unit, which makes the company's cell phones, but that plan was put on hold when it became clear that the company wouldn't be able to find a buyer. In the meantime, it brought in co-CEO Sanjay Jha, who has been trying to revive the ailing mobile-device business.

Motorola, once the No. 2 handset maker around the world, got into trouble after the company couldn't come up with a hit phone to replace the popular Razr. And over the past two and half years, it's been fighting an uphill battle in the high-end smartphone market against newer players such as Apple and Research In Motion.

About a year ago, Jha reset the company's focus, and Motorola committed itself to building phones using the new Google Android operating system. The first of these phones, the Motorola Cliq, which is being sold on T-Mobile USA's network, and the Motorola Droid, which is being sold exclusively in the United States by Verizon Wireless, went on sale this fall.

So far, reviews have been good. And the Droid, in particular, has gotten a lot of attention. Motorola expects to launch another 20 Android devices next year.

While prospects for the mobile market are improving, the company is still losing money in this division. For the third quarter of 2009, sales for Motorola's mobile-handset business dropped 46 percent to $1.69 billion, and it lost about $183 million, compared with a year-ago loss of $840 million.

Motorola's enterprise mobility unit, and its set-top box and networking-gear division, have been keeping the company afloat for the past couple of years. But now there are signs that these businesses are also hitting hard times.

During the third quarter, revenue in the enterprise mobility business was down 13 percent to $1.77 billion. Still, this division generated a net income of $306 million, down from $403 million a year ago.

Motorola also saw declines in its home and network mobility business. This business unit includes TV set-top boxes and wireless-networking equipment. This business unit posted the most sales for the company during the quarter, bringing in $2.01 billion. But this figure was down about 15 percent from the same quarter a year ago. In addition, the company's profit was about $199 million, down from $263 million during the third quarter last year.

Motorola blamed the slip in profits on a decline in sales of home entertainment devices to cable and phone companies. That said, the division still remains Motorola's most profitable.

Even though sales and profits may be down this year for the TV set-top box and networking business, the division is still attractive to potential buyers. The main reason is that Motorola has very strong market share in the set-top box market, where it competes head-to-head with Cisco Systems' Scientific Atlanta brand.

The Wall Street Journal article said private-equity firms Texas Pacific Group and Silver Lake Partners are interested in the company. And it's likely that Motorola competitors such as Samsung Electronics, Huawei Technologies, Nokia Siemens, Pace, and Ericsson may be interested in this business to bulk up their presence in the U.S. market.

But analysts warn that selling this division now could hurt Motorola's turnaround effort. RBC analyst Mark Sue told Reuters that Motorola needs the set-top box and networking business to help fund operations for the mobile-device business.

"(The mobile-device business) hasn't really recovered fully yet, so it would be a little too early to cut off the lifeline," he said to Reuters.

The Wall Street Journal said investment banks JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are advising Motorola on the possible sale.

Helix Wind's The S322 vertical wind turbine

(Credit: Helix Wind)

Helix Wind announced Wednesday that it's beginning a trial run in Southern California to see if its wind turbines might be useful for powering cell phone towers.

The manufacturer is becoming known for its small vertical-axis wind turbines that can generate electricity with winds as low as 10 mph, as well as its unique business model to finance them.

The pilot program, conducted in conjunction with cell phone tower operator Core Communications, will experiment with whether the turbines powering cell phone towers could also generate surplus energy to sell back to the energy grid.

If they generate enough surplus power, small wind turbines could provide a new source of income for cell phone tower operators as well as a new power source.

Helix Wind's turbines, which will be installed in early 2010, will run for up to three months before being re-evaluated.

According to statistics provided by Helix Wind, there are approximately 3,500 cell phone towers in Southern California, and another 1,000 expected to be added in the next five years to cover consumer growth.

U.K. wireless carrier Orange just started selling the iPhone, and it is trumpeting first-day sales numbers for the device.

(Credit: Apple)

The carrier signed up 30,000 people with a new iPhone contract on Tuesday, its first day selling Apple's smartphone, according to a post on Twitter from a member of Orange's marketing department.

While 30,000 isn't necessarily a lot, compared to the "hundreds of thousands" of iPhones AT&T sold in its first weekend selling the iPhone 3GS in the United States, it's not bad for being the second carrier in a much smaller country, where the iPhone 3GS has been available for four months.

Until Tuesday, wireless provider O2 was the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the United Kingdom. Orange currently has 16 million mobile customers, compared to O2's 22 million. Incidentally, Orange's experience as the second carrier of the device in a country would seem to make a decent case for Apple releasing the iPhone to more than one carrier in many other countries, including the United States.

The numbers were far more impressive than the iPhone's debut on China Unicom's network last week. China's first crack at selling the iPhone was by most accounts disappointing, with 5,000 units sold over the first four-day period.

Of course, China Unicom is dealing with factors Orange is not. Besides having to sell the iPhone without Wi-Fi connectivity, China has to contend with something U.K. and U.S. carriers largely do not: a vast market for iPhone knockoffs, or gray-market phones.

In the race for mobile phone profits, Apple has overtaken Nokia, according to figures for the latest quarter.

Apple earned $1.6 billion in the third quarter from the iPhone, outpacing Nokia's $1.1 billion cell phone profit to grab the top spot among all mobile phone vendors, said research firm Strategy Analytics on Wednesday.

(Credit: Strategy Analytics)

This is the first quarter that Strategy Analytics has seen Apple surge past Nokia in mobile phone profits, according to Alex Spektor, the author of the research, who spoke with CNET News.

The contest between Apple and Nokia for top phone profits has been tight in recent months. ... Read more

Correction at 7:25 a.m. PST November 12: This article incorrectly stated the percentages of consumers planning to use social media and mobile phones to assist in their holiday shopping. Seventeen percent of consumers who were surveyed plan to use social media to help them shop, and 19 percent plan to use their mobile phones.

If you're looking for just the right gift for Aunt Sally, you may find yourself turning to social networks and your mobile phone this holiday-shopping season.

More consumers expect that these two aspects of technology will help lead the way this year, according to a recent survey from consulting firm Deloitte.

Deloitte, which surveyed more 10,000 consumers for its 24th annual holiday-shopping survey, drillled down on technology's effect on buying habits by releasing new statistics on Wednesday.

The survey found that 17 percent of consumers plan to use social media during the holidays. Of that 17 percent chunk, 53 percent plan to use social media to research gift ideas, 52 percent intend to check the wish lists of relatives and friends on social networks, and 60 percent plan to hunt for discounts and sales using social networks.

Mobile phones are also becoming a tool for bargain-hungry shoppers.

Among those surveyed, 19 percent plan to use their mobile phones to assist in holiday shopping. Of that 19 percent chunk, 55 percent expect to use their phones to find store locations, 45 percent to research prices, 40 percent to seek product information, 32 percent to find discounts, and 25 percent to buy a holiday gift.

The good, old Internet still rates as a top spot for holiday shoppers, with 22 percent saying they'll shop primarily online this year and 44 percent expecting to use a coupon they find online.

Online research is big for key purchases, with 39 percent saying they read reviews of stores or products written by other consumers and 34 percent indicating that such online reviews influence their buying decisions more than advertising.

The relationship between brick-and-mortar stores and their Web sites seems to be symbiotic. Among those questioned, 65 percent said they've purchased an item online after finding it in a store or catalog, while 78 percent said they've bought a product in a store after seeing it on the store's site.

"Consumers are turning to mobile, online and social media during their entire holiday shopping experience," Stacy Janiak, a Deloitte vice chairman, said in a statement. "Retailers should consider harnessing this activity to turn browsers into buyers with one-click access to coupons, promotions and purchasing tools. This year's leaner in-store inventories may also open the door for retailers to lure customers to their online channels where it is easier to access inventory, no matter where it is located."

Commissioned by Deloitte, the survey was conducted online by an independent research firm between September 24 and October 2 and included responses from 10,878 consumers.

Henry Tirri

(Credit: Nokia)

HELSINKI--It will take years and a technology "breakthrough on multiple fronts" before the battery lives of smartphones will reach "good" levels, according to the head of Nokia's research center, Henry Tirri.

By "good," Tirri meant phones that can last on a weekly power charge, which will support battery utilization closer to what basic phone models require today, he said at a media interview here Tuesday.

Lamenting the current state of smartphone battery life, he noted that most high-performance models with large screens do not last more than eight hours of constant usage on a single charge....

Read more of "Smartphone batteries need 'breakthrough'" at ZDNet Asia.

Google said Tuesday it will subsidize free wireless network access in 47 airports from now until January 15--and indefinitely in the airports of Burbank, Calif., and Seattle.

The promotion, in cooperation with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, and Airport Marketing Income, is the latest effort to use free Wi-Fi to boost a brand. Among others: Yahoo is sponsoring Wi-Fi in Times Square in New York, and Google is sponsoring Internet access on Virgin America flights during the holidays.

Among the larger participating airports are those in Houston, Boston, Miami, Las Vegas, Nashville, San Diego, Baltimore, and St. Louis. A full list of the airports is at Google's free holiday Wi-Fi site.

The move, though not cheap, is probably smart. Plenty of business travelers have a laptop and time to kill, and today's consumers are increasingly likely to be equipped with laptops, iPod Touches, or other devices that can use wireless Internet access. Google is spending some money for an opportunity to give a lot of people the warm fuzzies when they encounter the Google brand.

And in the big picture, Google gets to show people what the world might be like if there were more high-speed wireless Internet access--something the company has been aggressively lobbying for in Washington, D.C. Many people are used to wireless networking in their homes, but it's a different matter on the road.

There are downsides, though, too. Having been to dozens of conferences where the wireless Net access collapses as soon as the keynote speech begins, I'm acutely aware that providing large-scale wireless Internet access is technically demanding--and people get unhappy when a promised benefit evaporates. And public, anonymous places such as airports and urban population centers are great spots for hackers to launch main-in-the-middle attacks by offering "Free Wi-Fi," so exercise caution when logging on to these networks.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET)

Early indications suggest that the Motorola Droid could be the breakout hit phone of the holiday season.

You might not have guessed it from the lack of long lines this past weekend, but analysts believe that Verizon is seeing strong sales of the Motorola Droid. The device went on sale on Friday across the country. And unlike other big launches for phones such as Apple's iPhone or even the Palm Pre, retailers had plenty of devices in stock, and customers didn't have to stand in long lines to get their phones.

Neither Verizon nor Motorola is providing exact sales figures, but David Samberg, a spokesman for Verizon, said sales were very strong over the weekend, with a steady stream of customers Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Store representatives in Manhattan confirmed this, with one sales associate telling me on Monday afternoon that there had been a steady stream of customers in the store all weekend and even through Monday.

Analysts also believe that the phone is selling well. Mark McKechnie, an analyst at Broadpoint AmTech, who covers Motorola, checked with a small sample of Verizon retailers around the country and said in a research note on Monday that he is encouraged by the anecdotal reports.

"While it is early, and the sample size is small, we are encouraged by our findings," he said.

McKechnie estimates that Verizon had about 200,000 phones in retail channels for the launch, with many stores in larger metropolitan markets, such as New York and Los Angeles, getting about 300 devices. Stores in cities such as San Francisco got more than a 100 devices, and retailers in smaller cities got between 25 and 40 devices each.

Locations were stocked well enough that there were no reports of any stores that were completely sold out. An employee at the Verizon Wireless store on West 34th Street in New York said his store had gotten about 500 Motorola Droids and HTC Android Eris phones for Friday. The store didn't sell out of either phone, but much of its stock is now gone.

That said, the store employee, who didn't want his name used, said his store did sell out of the $29.99 Droid docking station, which charges the device. As of Monday, the company still hadn't restocked its supply of that accessory.

McKechnie reported in his research note that the Droid outsold the HTC Eris, which also went on sale Friday. And checks with Verizon stores in Manhattan back up this claim. While there were plenty of customers looking at the HTC Android Eris in the Verizon stores I visited Monday afternoon, most people said they planned to buy the Droid. The main reasons were the device's higher-resolution screen, better camera, faster processor, and latest Android software.

Still, plenty of customers noted that they preferred the look of the HTC Eris over that of the Droid.

Verizon's marketing may also be paying off. Verizon is spending more money on the Droid advertising campaign than it has on any other device launch. At least one customer at the West 34th Street said Verizon's advertisements had convinced him to get the Droid instead of Apple's iPhone, which runs on AT&T's network.

"I was considering the iPhone," said Henry Goodison of the Bronx borough. "But I saw a commercial about AT&T's 3G coverage. It said, 'Here is AT&T's 3G coverage, and here is ours.' And I thought it would be better to have Verizon, if I travel to another state, where AT&T doesn't have 3G coverage."

AT&T is actually suing Verizon Wireless over this commercial, asserting that Verizon's advertisement is misleading consumers. Verizon dismisses this claim as untrue.

Sprint Nextel said it will cut 2,000 to 2,500 positions in the fourth quarter in an effort to save $350 million.

The cuts will be completed by December 31.

According to a statement, Sprint will cut jobs across the company, including its wholesale unit and contractors. The company said the cuts won't impact customer service, something the Sprint has been trying to improve. Nevertheless, Sprint said call volume has decreased so it has discontinued 27 call centers.

Sprint will take a fourth quarter charge of $60 million to $80 million. The layoff news comes as Sprint will reportedly sink another $1 billion into Clearwire.

Read the original post of "Sprint to cut 2,000 to 2,500 jobs" at ZDNet's Between the Lines.