What Is Motorola?
Motorola is an American telecommunication company founded in September 1928 in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. Motorola designed, manufactured, and sold handsets and wireless network equipment such as signal amplifiers and base stations, and was a pioneer in wireless telephone handsets. The company thrived in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, but lost market share in the mid-2000s and began reporting financial losses in 2007. In 2011 the company was split into two entities, Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility, with the former being considered the successor of the original company. Motorola Mobility began manufacturing smartphones based on the Android operating system in 2009, but the market was too competitive, and incurred significant losses. The company also produced handsets, cable modems, and set-top boxes, and was sold to Google and later to Lenovo in 2012 and 2014, respectively.
Motorola Inc. was split into Motorola Solutions Inc. (MSI) and Motorola Mobility LLC in 2011. Motorola Solutions is considered the successor of the original company, and relocated its headquarters from Schaumburg, Illinois, to 500 W. Monroe St in Chicago in 2015. It currently occupies the top six floors of the building and has over 1100 employees. Part of the company's former corporate offices were retained, but a large portion was turned over to the City of Chicago for redevelopment. Between 1960 and 1976, the corporate headquarters was located at 9401 West Grand Avenue, Franklin Park, Illinois, followed by 1301 E Algonquin Rd, Schaumburg, Illinois from 1976 until 2015. The building was later demolished in 2017. Following the company's split, Motorola Mobility moved its headquarters from 1301 E Algonquin Rd, Schaumburg to Merchandise Mart Chicago, Illinois. In addition to headquarters in Illinois, Motorola also operates several regional and production offices and facilities across the United States. These include government electronics and semiconductor divisions in Arizona, a research facility in Riverside, California, and a second semiconductor plant is in Austin, Texas.
The headquarters of the Motorola handset division are located in Chicago, Illinois, where it designs mobile devices and licenses its intellectual properties. Products manufactured at the facility include wireless and cellular systems, Bluetooth accessories, and mobile phones. Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility Solutions has its headquarters in Schaumburg, Illinois, and the division consists of communication services offered to government, businesses, and public safety sectors. Devices manufactured at the facility include mobile computing, wireless infrastructure, and data capture systems. The headquarters of the Home and Networks Mobility division are located in Arlington Heights, Illinois, which manufactures end-to-end systems that provide uninterrupted access to information and communication via wireless and wired medium, voice and data modems, digital video systems, and digital entertainment.
About the Author
Victor Kiprop is a writer from Kenya. When he's not writing he spends time watching soccer and documentaries, visiting friends, or working in the farm.
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