Where is Motorola headed?

Motorola Inc.'s (NYSE: MOT) recent quarterly loss of $181 million hopefully will get some sand out of CEO Ed Zander's boots and make the cellphone manufacturer realize that the competitive world has changed out there in the last 24 months. Gone are Motorola's technological firsts in the handset market (where it makes more of its money). Samsung is eating its lunch (again) and a renewed Sony Ericsson is doing incredibly well by not selling low-end handsets and having very few carrier partners in the U.S. So, Motorola -- what's up?

Zander says that "We've got to get back on the horse and start riding again...it will take us a little time." That's fine, but what have you been doing for the last 12 months? Slowly falling off the horse? Motorola's Q1 loss was the company's first sales decline in almost four years. Hmm: Motorola cut prices, lost market share to rivals such as Nokia and Samsung and has not had a "wow" follow-up to the RAZR, which put the company back on the map in late 2004.

Let's not mention Carl Icahn, who is pushing for a board set with his minority stake in the company. So, it's fair to say that Zander and company have some work to do. New handsets cannot be merely "me too" products or they will go nowhere. But that asks: what is left? Is there any more innovation left in cellphones these days? Music players? So 2005. Big color screens? Yawn. Sliders and risers and flips? Been there, done that. Motorola needs more than all that to "kick Sony Ericsson butt" according to Zander. We'll be waiting all through 2007 for it, Ed.