Composition Analysis

Emotion Expression

Color Strategy

Text Strategy

The Paradox Hook

Nostalgia as Retention

Corporate Hero's Journey

Competence Porn

Hi, welcome to another episode of Cold Fusion. Most people remember Motorola as a nostalgic mobile brand, a brand for millennials and the dust bins of history. But what people don't know is that the company hasn't disappeared. In fact, it's actually thriving with a $60 billion valuation. In its new form, Motorola has become a favorite for first responders like firefighters and paramedics. Their modern business model is making equipment like mission-critical walkie-talkies or police cameras. But the thing is, when you look into Motorola, their story is amazing. What may surprise you is that Motorola has been instrumental in some of the most impactful moments in humanity's history. The Apollo moon landings broadcast of 'One Small Step for Man' was spoken on a Motorola receiver. The first handheld mobile phone was literally invented by them. But in the modern day, the company is essentially out of the public eye, but still a quiet achiever. Their smartphone division is also making a comeback. It sounds almost impossible, but it's true. In this episode, we explore the story of Motorola and their extreme pivot into one of the most remarkable comebacks in history. You are watching Cold Fusion TV.

Up until the 1970s, in terms of phone communication, all you had was landlines, public telephones, and car phones. Obviously, none of these were truly portable, at least not in the way we define it today. But there were two primary companies that wanted to change this: Motorola and Bell Labs. Now, Bell Labs had conceptualized the idea of a cell phone for decades. They continued to try and build an infrastructure around car phones to improve reliability and make the service affordable. However, they were hit with a brick wall and basically refused to admit it. The fact was car phones were massive and at their very best depended on the vehicle's battery and were notoriously unreliable without ideal conditions.

Enter Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola. He felt that the consumer wanted something different, even if his competitors disagreed. He got to work doing the impossible, making communication truly mobile. 'Why don't we build a cellular system that's the way it ought to be? That's personal, portable. We shut down engineering in the company and put all our efforts into building a handheld portable cell phone. ' Once Cooper and his team had created the test product, in a bold move, he made the world's first mobile phone call to none other than Bell Labs. He would later recount the historic phone call to NPR: 'I said, "I\'m calling you on a cell phone, a real cell phone, the personal handheld portable cell phone. " You notice I was not averse to rubbing his nose in our achievement. ' At the time, Martin Cooper deserved bragging rights. It may have looked like a radioactive brick, but for 1973, what Cooper and his team had achieved was something monumental: the great-grandfather of our smartphones.

And Motorola still had more up their sleeve. They helped drive PC milestones like the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, mainly forgotten today, many people consider it the first modern processor, the Motorola 68000. From its inception and launch in the late '70s, the Motorola 68000 CPU brought power and performance to programmers that they had never witnessed before. It would not only power an entire generation of video games from the mid-'80s to the late '90s, it was many more times powerful than its competition at the time. By the '90s, it would find its way into game consoles such as the Sega Genesis, even the Atari Jaguar and Sega Saturn. It was capable of multitasking, virtual memory, and running multiple OSes many years before anyone else, even Intel. In fact, the Motorola 68000 powered the very first Apple Macintosh. Despite their technical prowess, the company would eventually lose out to Intel. But from a business perspective, slowly losing the race in microprocessors didn't seem like a major concern.

In 1983, Motorola introduced the DynaTAC 8000X, the first commercially available cell phone. Of course, by today's standards, the 8000X was an absolute abomination. It came out weighing 2. 5 lb. It had 30 minutes of battery life, and in today's money, it cost about $12,000. Regardless, people didn't care, and they wanted one. Motorola sold 300,000 of the things. People wanted a truly mobile phone. So, the future looked bright. All Motorola needed to do was remain focused. Reason being, almost immediately, they were no longer alone. By the mid-'90s, there was still a formidable force with their StarTAC phone. However, competition was getting fierce.

One of the standouts was Nokia, and a reputation followed them, especially with their indestructible 3310. Nokia was considered the practical choice as something simple and reliable for making calls and texts. Another one was RIM's BlackBerry, a favorite for high-profile business leaders and professionals, as well as a status symbol. And by 2003, Motorola was in serious trouble and now had been in second place to Nokia for several years. But there was a bigger problem rising from South Korea: Samsung. Even back then, they were rumored to have more potential than both Nokia and Motorola combined. A Forbes analyst at the time stated: 'Motorola has no choice but to start looking over its shoulder at South Korea's Samsung. 2003 may turn out to be the final year in which Motorola is the clear number two. 2004 could turn out to be a real horse race for second place. '.

And Motorola knew they needed to do something. So, in 2004, they released the Motorola Razr. For the time, the design of this phone was more refined than anything else. It was incredibly thin, had a premium metallic exterior, and a futuristic button layout. Yet, it also had a capable camera and MP3 capabilities. And let me tell you, I remember back in high school, anyone who had a Razr was automatically cool. Those were the good old days. Anyway, Nokia was the dependable one. BlackBerry was a status symbol for Silicon Valley and Wall Street. But the Razr was cool and sleek, a status symbol for everyday people. Its global sales exceeded 130 million. It's easily one of the most popular mobile phones of all time. Unfortunately, the success for Motorola would turn out to be short-lived, and behind the scenes, the company was becoming financially vulnerable. The next 10 years would become an absolute bloodbath. Next up, we'll see how the iPhone destroyed Motorola and then see how they made one of the greatest business turnarounds in history.

But after listening to Motorola's complete story, you might be inspired to start your own business. Though getting started is usually the hardest part. Between setting up a website, adding products, and keeping track of orders, things can get complicated fast. That's where today's sponsor, Odoo, comes in. Odoo is an all-in-one business management platform offering over 70 different applications to help run your business easier and all from one place. Let me put you onto one of Odoo's game-changing apps, eCommerce. The eCommerce app allows you to create your own website in four simple steps. No coding required. Odoo's built-in AI automatically creates your website template based on your business type. And from there, you can then customize everything using intuitive drag-and-drop tools. There are dozens of beautiful mobile-friendly templates to choose from. Whether you want something sleek and modern or bold and vibrant, everything looks great on any device, even a Motorola. Adding products is just as simple. Click new. Enter the details like your price or barcode.

Upload your images, and once you hit save, your product is live. Launch your eCommerce store at no cost under Odoo's one app free for life offer. It comes with unlimited hosting and support plus a free personalized domain name for your first year. And as your business grows, you can unlock Odoo's full suite of apps starting from just $34. 40 AUD per user per month or $24. 90 USD per user per month. So, if you've been thinking about starting an online business or simplifying the one you already have, click the link in the description and try Odoo today. Thanks to Odoo for supporting Cold Fusion.

When Steve Jobs stood on stage in 2007 and unveiled the iPhone, the world changed in an instant. Behind the scenes, almost every big player was beginning to panic. Even Nokia, which had a substantial lead, was creating PowerPoints outlining how the iPhone could change everything. But it shows that Nokia understood this touchscreen was going to change things. It was going to upend the industry, be a revolution. And of course, this challenges what everyone thought, which was that Nokia was completely blindsided by the iPhone. They had no idea what this was going to mean or do, or they just kind of had blinders on. But no, you can see they had some insight. They just failed to capitalize on it. Unfortunately for Motorola, the situation was much worse. The Razr was outdated, and newer phones weren't pulling in the numbers. They were losing market share from every direction. Not to mention that Motorola had been laying off people gradually since the year 2000. Its handset division was bleeding money, a $1. 2 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2007 alone.

In the same quarter, the company as a whole just earned $100 million. Eventually, they had no choice but to split the company in two: Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility.

From 2008 to 2009, in other words, just one year, Motorola lost 40% of its unit sales. The writing was on the wall, and the company was dying. By 2011, pieces of Motorola were being sold off to the highest bidder. The network division was sold to Nokia Siemens. Motorola Mobility was sold to Google in 2012. It was rated for patents and Android devices. Later in 2014, it would be sold to China's Lenovo. It looked like Motorola had finally run out of road. After a long decline, they became a lost.

Pioneer in the world of big tech. A major contributor that influenced the way our devices evolved. But they didn't have the internal operational strength to make it on their own. But recently, it looks like Motorola is making a comeback. A comeback in a big and unexpected way. They're doing so by going back to their roots. You see, back near its founding in the late 1920s, Motorola would build and sell car radio receivers to police departments. And 100 years later, they would go back to that very same industry. In the middle of major losses in 2008, Motorola had actually been secretly playing the long game, appointing CEO Greg Brown.

For Brown, the future of Motorola's business wasn't in cell phones, but in public safety and security. Quote, "I knew from the first day I joined Motorola that the best part of the company was the part that few cared about. Motorola could do a lot more by doing less. " End quote. To Brown's credit, less has been more. The company is experiencing a rebirth as a giant in security and emergency services. And of course, this is under the moniker Motorola Solutions.

For example, from the EU to the US to the UK, their radios are heavily used by firefighters. Motorola has even developed a cloud solution for fire rescue and emergency services. It cuts down response time and relays critical information seamlessly. It's kind of unexpected for a brand you associate with mobile phones. Despite some privacy concerns from the American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy advocacy groups, mainly over police high-speed cameras that read license plates, Motorola Equipment has become a favorite for firefighters, police officers, and other first responders.

">> Hi, um, I'm in a traffic jam and I think there's been an accident just up ahead. Command Central CRS automatically identifies the caller's mobile or landline number and their approximate location. As other calls are received, the system recognizes their location and tags them to the same incident. By identifying mobile or landline numbers, Command Central CRS can quickly recall information from its database of previous calls. The system brings up a map to visually show the caller's approximate whereabouts and the nearest available resources based on the incident type. Dispatch can send up to the minute data to responding units while the system tracks their location and gives an estimated time of arrival. Via Command Central CRS, incident handlers can monitor nearby CCTV to get a better picture of the scene. They identify that the incident involves a liquid tanker and potential chemical spill. The incident status has changed from normal to urgent.

The protected services, including the recently released M500 in-car video system, has been called a lifesaver by local law enforcement. The system uses multiple Motorola cameras and is integrated with local AI. It scans people for weapons and alerts 911 dispatchers if weapons are found or there's a perceived threat. They're seriously dominating in the world of police equipment in the US. All of our in-car radios, our body cams, our handhelds are all Motorola products now. They're all able to work together to cut down on the equipment and what we have to use. According to security operators, Motorola is now one of the most promising tech providers of the decade.

In fact, the fastest growing part of Motorola's business is its line of security products for hospitals, event spaces, and schools. Again, using AI to detect suspicious behavior. They've been working directly with schools to improve the safety of the students and prevent tragedies before things get out of control.

They've reached over $10 billion in revenue, 10 times their closest rival, Axon. Although this is good for Motorola, it is sad that critical response equipment is a booming industry to begin with. So, the Motorola name isn't the fossil that people believed it to be just 10 years ago. It took a lot of work to stop the bleeding and redefine its identity back to how they first started in the 1920s.

But that's not the end of the story. In a surprise twist, their mobile phone division is also rising from the dead. According to Motorola Mobility, their smartphone division chief strategies officer Sander Chadigar, the surgery to repair Motorola's troubled phone half of the business took three phases, one of which is yet to be completed.

He explains, quote, "The first phase, post acquisition in 2014, was all about stopping the financial losses. The business had been losing money under Google and it continued after we acquired it. So we focused on core strengths, exited premium market segments and several unprofitable markets that helped us reach break even. Phase 2 around 2018 to 19 was about stabilizing and growing the business while continuing to innovate. For example, the first 5G call was made on a Motorola device. We've reentered markets like Japan and open new ones including the Middle East. We've also entered the B2B sector. Now we're in the third phase, acceleration. The goal is to double our business in 3 to 4 years using financial year 2022 to 2023 as a baseline. We're halfway there. In our latest financials, we recorded 27% year-on-year growth and 43% growth in revenue. " End quote. So, it looks like Motorola Mobility will have a second chance at life.

Their recent smartphone iteration of the Motorola Razer was a pleasant surprise and a nod to nostalgia. But, I do think that it's a shame that they got rid of the classic Razer design. It kind of did set the phone apart from other vertical flip phones, but I digress. The newest Motorola Razer is a top contender alongside Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 7. They've also been reclaiming a fair amount of their lost market share with their introduction into India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. It's hard to imagine that any of this would have been possible without cutting Motorola at the peak of the company's crisis. So now there's a good chance that the Motorola name could live on far longer than anyone could have thought.

All in all, it's bittersweet with this one. Motorola is a beloved brand and has historically done a lot for humanity. Their comeback is nothing short of remarkable. On the one hand, it's great that their critical response and public safety equipment can keep people safe. But on the other hand, the fact that critical response and surveillance equipment for threats is a booming business says more about where society is heading than any business cycle. That being said, it will be interesting to see where the revival of their smartphones go in the next few years.

All right, so that's about it from me. Thanks for watching through the first Cold Fusion video of 2026. My name is Dog Go and you've been watching Cold Fusion. I'll see you again soon for the next episode. Cheers, guys. Have a good one. Cold fusion. It's new thinking.