So says today’s BusinessWeek Asia. With Samsung leaping past Motorola last year as the 2nd largest cellphone manufacturer and LG recently leaping past Sony Ericsson to take the #4 spot, consulting group Strategy Analytics says that Motorola is “…in real danger of being overtaken… by… [LG].”
It seems ever since they came up with the RAZR, Motorola has been asleep at the wheel. Is this another case of a once proud American giant getting complacent and letting overseas competitors get the jump?
Rest assured though, Korean companies still have a problem being innovative. In BusinessWeek’s list of the 50 most innovative companies Korea only had one player listed, Samsung at #26. Koreans will be sad to learn that Japan gets four: #16 Honda, #9 Sony (damn Blu-Ray and that PS3!), #7 Nintendo and #3 Toyota. Get this, even the Indians may be more innovative, with Tata Group at #6.
53 Comments
“Is this another case of a once proud American giant getting complacent and letting overseas competitors get the jump?
Motorola is American?
user-81,
Is that a serious question?
Per Wiki:
“Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) is an American telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, a Chicago suburb.”
Motorola is likely going to sell their handset division. My father worked for Motorola for nearly a decade and was just let go, though thankfully with a nice severance package and a job at General Dynamics waiting for him. Motorola has been problems for the last 2 years and they have been cutting people left and right. It’s no surprise because their product offerings following the original Razr have been fairly lackluster.
Handsets are more or less commodities these days and I think Motorola is at least hoping to rebuild on its more profitable business areas like IBM did after shedding its PC division.
I have the Razr. I also had the Startac. I will never buy a Motorola again. The reason is that after 6 months of use the batteries are useless. One fully charged battery lasts me under 2 days now even if I don’t use my phone much. It seems one conversation is enough to reduce the charge significantly. I had the exact same problem 5 years ago when I used the Startac, a horrible looking phone. The Razr looks nice but it’s not a good phone.
maddog — I’ve had the exact same set of experiences as you. I also owned a Startac and Razor, really enjoyed the Startac actually — the audio quality was top notch — but their batteries do indeed suck eggs.
For the last 6 months I’ve been using an iPhone and I have definitely been turned into a convert of the ‘jesus’ phone. Motorola should actually be more worried of the TRUE innovation coming from Cupertino, California which makes their handsets seem downright antiquated in comparison. Even Samsung’s latest offerings in the US (Voyager, etc.) are iPhone wannabe’s using touch-screen interfaces and all that jazz but the experience and functionality is lacking, and if it wasn’t for Samsung’s volume sales of budget handsets to make up for their declining high-end phone sales the division would be in some hot water.
Apple the most innovative company in the world? WTF?!
I really don’t like pointless rankings like these because no one ever lists their criteria but innumerable idiots lap it up. Does anyone in the world still care for precision? The entire list reads as a who’s who of Businessweek’s biggest corporate advertisers, trendy “IT” companies, and big name industry fat cats.
I can’t express in words how much I hate “Web 2.0″ companies like Facebook. You would have thought after the dot com bubble people would be more wary of plowing billions of dollars into businesses with iffy revenue streams and stratospheric valuations.
But yeah, Apple is crap.
Im surprised LG isn’t on that list. As far as being innovative I find LG far more than Samsung.
#6,
Yeah. It’s clear that whoever came up with that list has/have a very limited view of the world and know very little about scientific research and cutting edge technologies.
I’m not really sure the Toyota Prius can be called innovative when it was created by the Americans first.
That’s the problem. Americans are brilliant inventors, but until recently, terrible executors. How is it that Toyota got the jump on successfully deploying a commercial hybrid product out to market given that the Americans had prototypes YEARS before the Japanese? I shake my head at the opportunity lost…
India will quickly emerge as a center of innovation and dynamism — maybe not on par with first-rank countries for a while yet, but they will overtake and stay ahead of Korea permanently.
The English language plugs India into the idea currents of the Anglosphere, a community of about 600 million to one billion of the world’s richest and most innovative people. Korea’s language will permanently keep all but the tiniest sliver of its people cut off from the ideas percolating through the world’s leading community, and Korea’s rent-seeking culture will make sure that those of its citizens who can access global currents use that access simply to maintain dominance over other Koreans.
Also I’m wondering how and why you guys continually let the Japanese steal credit? I’m obviously anti-Japanese but nonetheless I’m dumbfounded how the media seems to spin this towards the Japanese.
@12, you’re right about the latter part of your post. Koreans in power will do whatever it takes to stifle independent though, creativity. It’s been like that since god knows how long.
India becoming a center of innovation? As opposed to other countries? Because… Fill this in…
Because of India’s choice to retain the English language as the medium of instruction, of law, of commerce. The English language isn’t simply a language — it comes together with a liberating mindset.
Yeah, um no to put it simply. English is a second language and it didn’t liberate my mind. I did that on my own and with a upbringing that I can thank my parents for.
English language as far as innovation goes, has the capability to communicate abstraction very well. That’s its greatest strength and I’ve learned a tremendous amount just arguing in English alone. However I can say all the same ideas in Korean. This is nearly impossible with Japanese and Chinese since they aren’t based on an alphabet to begin with.
The Japanese do have an alphabet but they write using Chinese so the benefits of an alphabet are nearly gone.
Innovation comes from the society in which it’s raised in. Americans, from what I have learned, praise individuality from the very beginning. This is where creativity comes from not from your language.
stacked — Yes, but… The English-language media transmits cultural values too, including that praise of individuality. Every exported re-run of Everybody Loves Raymond and The Unit (or, for that matter, WWE RAW and Paradise Hotel), every copy of the Economist and the Wall Street Journal, every high school and university textbook, and so forth — these are the vectors by which the Anglosphere seduces you and transforms your mindset.
If you think that those materials — and your experience articulating and defending your ideas in argument with English speakers — didn’t contribute to the liberation of your mind, that you did it all yourself… Well, I think that proves my point!
Oh, and you’re welcome.
As for Japanese alphabet, that’s not a correct description. Japanese has two syllabaries, methods of transcription of spoken syllables, but no alphabet other than possibly romaji. But oops, that’s imported.
The ability to communicate abtract ideas well does not affect creativity.
English is just a language it doesn’t transmit cultural values. People who teach them might but the language itself doesn’t.
You’re really blurring the two.
If you taught English to a Chinese person, assuming the teacher is Chinese, you wouldn’t see some kind of new liberated mind.
Hummm…
I wonder when the Philippines and Ireland will emerge as a center of innovation and dynamism.
Not by the simple fact of learning English, no. But English connects that mind to currents of thought and innovation outside the Chinese mainstream. English makes it possible to be liberated. This is why the English language is the world’s best hope for progress. Can you imagine a world where the dominant modes of thought are the ones transmitted in the Chinese or Arabic languages? I’d rather not.
Let me clarify something. Being able to think and manipulate abtract thought is critical to creativity but language doesn’t create one or the other.
“This is nearly impossible with Japanese and Chinese since they aren’t based on an alphabet to begin with.”
Can you explain this concept? How does an alphabet allow one to express more abstraction than a writing style based on non-phonetic characters?
I am very interested in hearing your answer explained. So would about 14 Chinese and Japanese Nobel prize winners in literature who are wondering where the Korean winners are.
“Motorola is likely going to sell their handset division.”
Jing, nobody in the industry really wants to buy it. They tried to sell it to LG and LG was like, “What? You gotta be kidding me!”
If it’s sold, it’s likely gonna be bought by a private equity firm or a group of corporate raiders (like Carl icahn and/or a group led by him).
Well if you learn English you can communicate well with other English speakers thats a given.
I guess you neglected to study history. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, etc etc were not just great inventors but, along with a host of other lesser lights, innovative and successful creators of business organizations and methods, e.g., Ford’s techniques for mass production of automobiles and the resulting factory system; Sloan’s further rationalization of the industry under the aegis of GM; the whole IBM story. The execution was there; it just got ossified in some companies and some industries at some times, which afforded latecomers - who were able to copy those techniques rather than discover and invent them on their own - the opportunity to pull ahead - temporarily.
I think Greek is a better language then a hodgepodge language like English for creativity. Look at how innovative and dynamic the Greeks were! Alas, Greek is essentially a dead language.
@23, literature and what I’m talking about are not the same thing.
Btw there is 1 Chinese and 1 Japanese, not 14.
Both had heavy influence of western/European values. None of them can be attributed to anything remotely Chinese or Japanese.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
Ireland’s actually done quite well in the technology sector….
Spewer, I’m not disagreeing w/you… I said Americans were also great executors UNTIL recently.
You forgot to mention W. Edwards Deming, a statistician who invented the Deming Quality System, which was used to improve quality during WWII but forgotten by Americans soon afterwards. So… he went to teach in Japan and the Japanese revere him as a sort of national hero.
The whole story is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming
Brendon,
If you basing your point of Tata being on the list, you are going to sadly disappointed.
Comparing a Hyundai to a Tata automobile is like comparing a modern Honda Accord to a Ford Model T; there’s no comparison.
The only reason why TAta is on the list is due to its recent purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford. Jaguar and Land Rover have been a financial burden to Ford, never mind their poor reliability.
“I wonder when the Philippines and Ireland will emerge as a center of innovation and dynamism.”
Top of the ‘conomy to ya.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Tiger
”Btw there is 1 Chinese and 1 Japanese, not 14”
Btw there are TWO Japanese winning Novel Prize for literature.
Kawabata Yasunari in 1968 and Oe Kenzaburo in 1994.
“Also I’m wondering how and why you guys continually let the Japanese steal credit?”
Well, I feel the same way about Panasonic, whenever I see a Samsung product…
“Btw there is 1 Chinese and 1 Japanese, not 14.
Both had heavy influence of western/European values. None of them can be attributed to anything remotely Chinese or Japanese.”
Wrong. For Japan at least (don’t know about china) there are 2 for literature - Kenzaburo Oe & Yasunari Kawabata. And pray tell what makes those writers products of western literature? Kawabata’s style is uniquely japanese - extremely minimalist and sleek in the vein of haiku. methinks you are blowing smoke bubbles out of your ass.
“The only reason why TAta is on the list is due to its recent purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford. Jaguar and Land Rover have been a financial burden to Ford, never mind their poor reliability.”
Not quite. Tata is on the list because of their promise to deliver a $2000 car to the masses in India. With that logic though, BizWk should’ve bumped up some random chinese company to the top 10, that makes and sells those 3 wheeled mini trucks you see all over the chinese provinces. after all, those clunkers couldn’t cost more then $1500 could it?
But yeah, I agree with the sentiments that India is fast approaching korea’s (and china for that matter) rear view mirror.
Not that Motorola is on the top of the game when it comes to cell phones, but I can’t help getting a bit annoyed when a kyopo posts something like the above.
I mean this guy’s an American, right?
WangKon:
Actually, what you said was that until recently Americans were great inventors but terrible executors - quite the reverse of what you apparently intended.
Even on the latter point, though, I think you’re mistaking a tree for the forest. Even assuming that Motorola’s situation is a failure of execution in the exploitation of the handset market (rather than a case of deliberately moving out of a commodified market to focus on higher value-added, more profitable niches), it just illustrates the Schumpeterian cycle of creative destruction writ small. The characteristic feature of the US style of capitalism is the constant regeneration of new engines of value out of the wreckage of the old. Most other places, including Korea for the most part, are characterized by dead losses in the economic sphere, not the phoenix-sort of revivification that Korea’s adoption of the phoenix as a national symbol would suggest,
I didn’t think of Deming, but I had though of Taylor, who first developed the time/motion studies that played a big role in the rationalization of American business and that later were adopted and implemented by the Japanese in the 60s.
Motorola is sleeping at least in Canadian cellular handset market.it’s razr2 failed to attract customer as well as Motorola lost share in smartphone market with it’s Q series to BLackBerry and even to HTC.IMHO,It’s Samsung&Nokia need to worry about LG not Motorola.
I believe Motorola were 2nd only briefly, having overtaken Samsung with the RAZR. And yes the Motorola company is separating into mobile devices (Mobilephones) and Commercial solutions (Walkie talkies, security devices, smart card stuff etc). Only one side of the business had been making money in the last few years (excluding the brief RAZR period). But motorola’s main problem is that they sell based on image not function, their phones have lesser technology then their Korean equivalents and aren’t as dirt cheap as Nokia’s. So if they are unable to sell the image of their phone or their competitor is as successful in creating a marketable image, they fail. The RAZR despite it’s price was several months behind the korean equivalents in hardware, but it looked cool. The only good thing about it was their innovative surface finishing, ie the anodizing of the magnising case for the distinctive colours. Apparently that got old.
magnesium
I used to work for Motorola in their Schaumburg, Illinois HQ facility as my first engineering job out of college. It took me 1 year to realize Motorola was a dinosaur and another 6 months to find a good exit, and that was with their only consistently profitable division : 2-way private radio.
So, I was actually rather shocked Motorola had as decent of a run as they did with the RAZR and am not surprised at all they are slipping in the cell phone business.
Motorola used to be good at bringing new technologies to market, but they’re not even good at that anymore. Rather, they are a case in point of a company that is surviving by harvesting legacy products and using its size/muscle to get its way.
— BEGIN SEGUE INTO MICROSOFT —
There is also another M company which is not so different - Microsoft. They continue to ride their Windows/Office monopoly and have succeeded in only one other area in the past 15 years since then due to sheer muscle - gaming consoles. I don’t think any other company could have afforded to hemorage the billions that Microsoft has over the lifetime of the XBox. I’m guessing they’re still many years away from breaking even with their investment.
Alas, that same money could have been invested in a healthy, sustainable company for far greater returns. I find it ironic that more money would have been made had the XBox billions been poured into Sony or Nintendo, for instance, than into the bulldozer that’s Microsoft’s Gaming Console division.
“The only reason why TAta is on the list is due to its recent purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford. Jaguar and Land Rover have been a financial burden to Ford, never mind their poor reliability.”
Sorry, but I think you have it wrong on Tata. My last job was as a business intelligence analyst, specifically M&As. We especially looked at various connections that multinational firms have, and let me tell Tata’s name and executives came up quite frequently in our research. Those guys have their hands in a lot of cookie jars. Tata is basically an Indian “chaebol”, they are involved in everything from cement to steel to petrochemicals to autos. Don’t be surprised if you see Indian cars on the international market within the next 10 years or so. What people are saying about Tata today is what people said about Hyundai and Samsung 30 years ago.
I don’t know much about Chinese multinationals, any Chinese companies out there that are similar?
“I wonder when the Philippines and Ireland will emerge as a center of innovation and dynamism.”
The Irish economy is booming. As for the Philippines, up until the 1960s the Philippines had the 2nd fastest growing economy in Asia. In my opinion, massive corruption could have played a huge role in their failure to develop. If I’m not mistaken, I believe the word “kleptocracy” was coined to describe the Marcos regime.
Agreed. And yes, it is highly correlated with the English language.
As a grad student in the Nineties, I remember reading the Harvard case study dealing with Motorola CEO Bob Galvin’s concerns about the company becoming technologically obsolescent in the 1970’s. These guys sure take their time dying.
I bought a Motorola Q9c last month that bricked itself after one day of use. More power to Samsung and LG if they are putting out products that work.
# 36,
Well, if you are referring to moi, if you look at the paragraph immediately after, I don’t spare Korean companies either and deride their lack of innovation.
# 37,
Yes what I meant to say is that Americans have always been innovative but have until recently been poor executors.
# 43 and other Ireland boosters,
Yeah, I forgot about those guys. Too many late night images of Conan O’Brien making funny faces got me underestimating them.
I still stand by my belief that the Philippines, a semi-English speaking nation (like India), is run more like a banana republic and will, for the foreseeable future, lack any dynamism and industry. Speaking the English language hasn’t made the average pinoy any more disciplined or hard working.
# 44,
JJ, I don’t know if you meant to be sarcatic, but I just don’t agree with that viewpoint. The believe that you have a systemic advantage over a competitor is a sure fire way to become complacent and let that competitor zoom by you.
Depends on who’s doing the transmitting. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Arabs learn English and even study or live overseas, yet they think and speak like their monolingual compatriots. Oh, the fun we Westerners would have if hundreds of thousands of us became proficient in Chinese and Arabic and could talk back in those languages.
hmm. you know what’s weird. i have seen phones that looked a lot like the razr that offered similar features in Korea at least 5+ years before it came out in America. i think korean cell phone companies should get a bit more credit. lol. a lot of the phones i see in america are nothing new to me but i guess no is linking it back to Korea having similar phones first, except.. korea? lol
Korea is fourth largest filer of patents in the world (2007) just after US, Japan and Germany.
Did anybody say anything about innovativeness?
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....20027.html
Both LG and Samsung are on the Blu-Ray board of directors and both have received a very large number of patents relating to Blu-Ray technology. I think the first dual HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive to come on the market was Korean, although that’s a moot point now it still highlights their technological prowess. Samsung’s 500GB 2.5″ HD in a regular form factor has no competition on the horizon either. Don’t give .jp too much credit.
Actually I’ve got to hand it to Korean companies. They are some very determined bastards. When they set a goal to be number 1 or number 2 in a market, they make a super human effort to get there. Often the methodology is not that good, but they seem to get there just through sheer determination.
You see that in how Koreans drive and walk. Pathetic methodology but determined to get from point A to point B no matter how many people get run/knocked over.
Kinda like ants really.
#20, Ireland has become a centre of innovation, rising from the ashes to become one of Europe’s most successful countries.