Motorola: Dead Company Walking

Kevin Maney eulogizes: Motorola, once one of the great American companies, appears to be in a death cycle. Its stock is at a five-year low, its market share is sinking like a phone thrown overboard, and its product line seems to be behind the times. Analysts are dropping support for Motorola, the company's debt ratings are going through the floor, and it can't recruit top talent.

It all adds up to a sad scenario that seems destined to end with Motorola going the way of one-time icons like RCA, Westinghouse, and U.S. Steel. If Carl Icahn thought booting Ed Zander from the CEO job was going to fix anything, he was clearly mistaken.

On Glassdoor.com, the input from Motorola employees is brutal. Some samples:

From a senior project coordinator -- "There are probably too many downsides to express in this reveiw. There is high stress level due to the fact that no one knows from day to day if they will have a job even if they are a top performing employee."

From a software engineer: "Motorola is huge into cost cutting right now. It seems that cost cutting is our actual product. It makes me wonder that if we are so bent on cutting costs then are we going to say no to the right projects that will help make money in the end?"

From a senior quality engineer: "Please force out these dinosaur managers who have no grasp of technology! According to reports, our current CEO does not even use email. The previous CEO, Ed Zander, let the company become a laughingstock with its RAZR phones."

From an anonymous employee: "Tough times for the company have lead to a stressful work environment with employees and resources stretched very thin. Lost the creative edge from years past. Poor middle management in general. Very few managers are truly decisive leaders - they are unwilling to take any chances and risks and prefer to follow the herd."

CEO Greg Brown has one of the lowest internal approval ratings of any CEO reviewed on Glassdoor, at 19%. Employee satisfaction runs at a low 2.7 on a scale of 1 to 5. Unless something radical happens, Motorola's days of being a great company are done.

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