What happened to Motorola
This is really a fantastic, in-depth article, and highlights a lot of pieces about Motorola's history of which I was totally unaware. The breadth of their innovations was far greater than I realized, and the early decision to set up a world class shop in China seems to be very visible today in that area of the world.<p>That the internal competitions eventually led to internal war between different "tribes" doesn't totally surprise me. It seems you always read about that eventually happening in the post-mortem of any company with that type of structure. I wonder if there's a good way to balance internal competition. I imagine you would have to keep close watch on the overall silo-ing of each department.<p>I'm from the Chicago area, and I remember driving by their campus many times over the years as a kid, only really having an idea that they were somehow involved in phones. I was in high school when the Razr came out, and based on how popular it was I thought Motorola was an absolutely world-dominating company, not a business on the rebound from extremely heady heights.