A Motorola victory for Carl Icahn? Not quite yet. 

Motorola plans to split itself into two companies, spinning off to its shareholders a cell-phone business that has stumbled badly, losing $1.2 billion in 2007.

The other company will encompass Motorola's fast-growing home and networks business, which sells television set-top boxes and modems, and its enterprise mobility solutions, which sells computing and communications equipment to businesses.

It's a move that the legendary activist investor Carl Icahn has been calling for since early last year, when he first set his sights on the troubled company. But even today's announcement will not likely muzzle Icahn on the subject.

Icahn first took a stake in Motorola when its shares were trading for about $19. After losing a public battle for a board seat at the May 2007 shareholder meeting, Icahn persevered. He continued to scoop up Motorola shares as they steadily declined, all the while calling for the ouster of chief executive Ed Zander and the splitting off of the company's handheld business.

As of the most recent regulatory filing, Icahn's funds have spent more than $2 billion acquiring 6.3 percent of the telecom company.

Meanwhile, Icahn's pressure has been relentless. Zander's departure in January did little to assuage Icahn. When Motorola flatly rejected two of Icahn's four board nominees for the upcoming proxy fight, the billionaire investor promptly sued for access to board documentation.

Indeed, in an interview with Bloomberg Television earlier this week, Icahn said he was just "in the beginning of the first inning of the fight" for change in the Motorola boardroom.

At the same time, some analysts questioned the move to split the company in two. Under Zander, Motorola became a huge success in cell phones. The company sold more than 100 million of the ultraslim Razr phone. But when sales of the Razr lost ground to lower-priced rivals, the company went into a tailspin and fell behind in advances in mobile phones. Follow-ups to the Razr failed to catch on. Once the leader, Motorola currently has less than a third of the U.S. market.

Now the handset business is lacking both a leader and clear direction, two things that are necessary for its success as a stand-alone unit. Whoever helms the newly independent handset company has a formidable challenge ahead. Nokia, Samsung, and others reportedly passed when Motorola explored a possible sale of the business.

C.E.O. Greg Brown acknowledges there is plenty of work to do, and by planning for the spinoff in 2009, he's bought himself some time.

But Icahn is not a long-term investor, so time is not on his side. The next inning of this battle will take place at the shareholder meeting on May 5.