Zander Out - But MOT Troubles run deep

Ed Zander is out at CEO of Motorola.

It is staggering that he was hired in the first place. As cheerleader in chief of the tech bubble, he had failed to realize that Sun's Solaris system wouldn't stop servers from becoming a commodity.

It is even more staggering that he lasted so long. He never understood the wireless industry and famously quoted at the height of the RAZR's dominance as saying that after Motorola was done selling RAZRs it would sell more RAZRs. He relied on the Q as Motorola's foray into smart phones and made a series of meaningless and silly acquisitions in 2006.

I bought Motorola on Friday after the announcement figuring that the Zander's ouster would be worth a few points in the stock. I just got out at even, after realizing that this company faces serious challenges. They have hired an insider to run the company. They have Carl Icahn to contend with. They rely on antiquated technologies (they still market Tetris). They have no interesting products. They have tried and failed to evolve into a services company (ala IBM). They have missed all of the large scale technology trends in their own industry. They are betting on WiMAX which may not win. The telecom industry is moving quickly without them, almost leaving them for the next Alcatel-Lucent or Nortel.

In short, Ed Zander being out is a first step, but I still cannot find any other reason to own the company.