The stock price is headed down again, buffeted by negative investor sentiments and a rash of downgrades by disillusioned financial analysts who argue Motorola is losing further market share as growth in the mobile handset industry drops towards the single digit level from multi-year double-digit expansion.

Corporate icons don't last forever. AT&T Inc. is today a mere shadow of the massive company that once ruled the U.S. telecommunications market decades ago and even its most notable offspring, Lucent Technologies, has been gobbled up by France-based Alcatel.

Even Microsoft Inc. and Yahoo Inc., two of America's more recent players in the hgh-tech world, are struggling for survival and market dominance against Google Inc., a more nimble rival. Yahoo is in a more desperate situation than Microsoft and how it copes with its current problems would be the stuff of business school discussions years from now.

Motorola, though, is in a different category than Microsoft or even Yahoo. Founded in 1928, Motorola has been a proud fixture in America's technological development for 80 years now.

The company's patent roll is enormous and its radio communications inventions, including the car radio and the police radio receiver, helped establish America's legend as the land of technological marvels.

Another major Motorola invention, the two-way portable radio or the walkie-talkie—originally dubbed the Handie-Talkie—was a vital tool in the hands of Allied soldiers during the Second World War. The impressive list of Motorola inventions and other outstanding products goes on.

In fact, Motorola introduced the first commercially available cellular phone, the DynaTAC to consumers in 1984. Motorola gave Americans enough good reasons to pound their chest in international technology conferences.

That American icon is slowly shredding to bits with no signs the management knows how to fix whatever the problems might be. The company is now a distant No. 4 in the wireless handset market and its only a matter of time before Apple overtakes it in that segment.

This is having a crushing impact on Motorola's stock valuation and investor impression of the company is at its lowest level in decades. When the Galvin Manufacturing Corp.—Motorola's predecessor company until a name change in 1947—had its initial public offering in 1943, the stock was priced at $8.50 and quickly became a part of many investors' portfolio.

On Tuesday, (June 24), though, Motorola's share price fell to $7.35, its lowest level in five years and 87 percent below the all-time high. Apple is today valued at about $153 billion while Motorola with a bigger annual revenue base of $36.7 billion compared with Apple's $24 billion has a market value of approximately $17 billion.

Motorola's management needs to figure out quickly what's wrong with this company and do whatever they can to revive it. Whatever they are doing now isn't working. This is what investors are saying and it's about time somebody listened to them.

By: DocMemory
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