Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Motorola CEO to Share Strategy Next Week

From: NEXTEL-1
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 11:11:49 -0400

Motorola CEO to Share Strategy Next Week

By Ben Klayman

July 23, 2004

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Motorola Inc. investors have waited long enough and
expect to hear more about Chief Executive Edward Zander's plans for the
world's second-largest cell-phone maker next week, analysts said.

Zander, who took the helm in early January, has said the company needs
to
home in on its customers and focus on a world where mobile phones and
other
electronic machines act as central hubs to manage everything from music
to
digital photos.
+

How that will influence company operations and structure, however, is
what
analysts and investors want to hear at the company's annual analyst
meeting
on Tuesday in Rosemont, Illinois.

"He's had enough time at this point. Zander's got to lay it down and
say,
'This is where we're headed. This is what we're doing,"' said Shawn
Campbell, a principal with Chicago-based Campbell Asset Management,
which
owns Motorola shares.

"He's going to have to have details and charts and graphs and
everything,"
Campbell added. "He's going to have to communicate to the investment
community what he's planning to do with this company."

Zander said he is ready to deliver.

"I do think we owe the analysts a little more about our strategy," he
told
Reuters in a telephone interview on Tuesday. We're going to try and
bring
it now, instead of a mile wide and half a foot deep, more a mile deep in
terms of strategies around what we're investing in."

Until now, Zander has emphasized the need to focus on the Schaumburg,
Illinois, company's four basic sets of customers: home, automotive,
corporate and consumer electronics.

That talk has led several analysts to wonder whether he plans to
eliminate
the current corporate structure, reorganizing along customer lines. Many
would welcome that change at a company long criticized as being too
driven
by engineering.

"You don't bring a CEO in like this and he just takes the status quo,"
said
Charter Equity Research analyst Edward Snyder, who has a "buy" rating on
the stock.

Others are less excited by that prospect and simply want Zander and
company
to concentrate on execution.

"One of the issues this company already struggles with is focus, so now
we're going to try to mesh things together more?" said Deutsche Bank
analyst Brian Modoff, who has a "hold" rating on the stock.

Another option would be to combine some of the current business units,
which include cell phones, cable set-top boxes, wireless infrastructure
equipment and two-way radios for government organizations.

One sensible move, according to some analysts, would be to combine the
two-way radio business with the wireless infrastructure unit. Such a
move
also would allow further job cuts as a way to boost profit margins.

Some investors even would love Zander to sell or spin off more
businesses,
as recently happened with its chip unit. Zander, however, has talked
more
of adding than subtracting.

In the end, analysts and investors simply want to know how Motorola will
continue its recent hot streak during which it has taken market share
from
larger rival Nokia and boosted profit.
+

"The easy fruit's been picked. Now you have to show something -- cost
cutting, business realignment, something," said one institutional
investor,
who asked not to be identified.

Along those lines, analysts expect Motorola to unveil several new phones
next week, including one that can use WiFi, or short-range high-speed
wireless networks, also known as "hot spots."

 Reuters News Service
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/SciTech/reuters20040723_255.html

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