Motorola's strategy and technology chief quits

The latest executive to leave Motorola: Rich Nottenburg, chief strategy and technology officer.

The doors of the cell phone maker's executive offices seem to have been revolving nonstop since activist investor Carl Icahn, who took a leading role in the Microsoft-Yahoo merger fracas late this week, began his successful pursuit of Motorola board seats.

Nottenburg's departure, announced on Thursday to employees in an internal memo, according to Motorola spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson, follows the replacements of CEO Ed Zander in January, acting CFO Tom Meredith in February, and mobile-devices head Stu Reed and marketing head Casey Keller in March, along with treasurer Steve Strobel and EMEA mobile-devices head Mike Fenger.

"(Nottenburg) left to return to the New York area to be with his family and pursue other opportunities," Erickson told Reuters.

In April, Motorola posted a quarterly loss of $194 million. Weeks earlier, under pressure from investors such as Icahn, the struggling company announced that it would split into two publicly traded companies, one handling handsets and accessories, and the other taking on wireless broadband networks and enterprise-level communications services.

In the wake of Nottenburg's resignation, according to The Wall Street Journal, Motorola Labs will be directed by Dan Moloney, who leads the company's home and networks mobility business.

Who's next?

[Jamie_Foster]

What the Hell is going on at Motorola? It wasn't long ago that they were making record profits and had 1/4 of the Handset market. They really need to totally replace senior managers like Greg Brown. They need to sort out their handset designs. They need to decide which Software they should support. They need to repair relationships with Carriers. Once they have attractive products they need to market them well. They cannot rely on just one massive hit like the Startac or RAZR. They need to have something for everyone like Nokia does. <br />At this rate Motorola will be heading for bankruptcy. The last thing they need is a yes man like Greg Brown or Ed Zander. They need someone like Steve Jobs.

[Jamie_Foster]

Chris Galvin should take over. Ed Zander destroyed Moto. All he did was cut costs. He damaged staff morale. He wasn't intelliigent enough to understand the handset business. When the RAZR became a hit he just sat back. Meanwhile Nokia and Samsung were introducing dozens of new handsets throughtout the year. They sold their stake in Symbian. They didn't commit to Series 60. They supported Windows Mobile, UIQ and Montavista Linux half-heartedly. They didn't bring Moto OS up to the standards of Nokia Series 30 and 40. <br />Everything they have done in the last three years has been feeble. I blame Zander. Its just as well that Google is run by Larry Page, according to FSJ. Because if Schmidt (another SUN alumni) was the real boss they would also be in the Toilet.

[JCPayne]

Didn't Motorola take a huge hit during the whole Qualcomm-CDMA patent squabble???<br /><br />Not to mention Nextel isn't doing good these days... And that means all those phone which Nextel gets from Motorola aren't moving anywhere.....

[Tod Smith]

It's OVER for M the headset business is not work a $1 per share. Cell technology is done.<br /><br />It's all about content and it seems that the MFT don't have any control over. They can't speed up or make the voice clearer than the tech they have on the market today.<br /><br />They want to include cameras, video, which increase the cost but not as good as the independent solution.<br /><br />As for video they would have to use OTA Digital, Cell, or Sat which none are feasible anytime soon for mass market.

[dargon19888]

This should actually be good for Motorola.<br /><br />Where many see this as the sinking ship aka titanic, you really have an opportunity to come in and redesign their product strategy from the ground up.<br /><br />There is no downside to the incoming executives.