Motorola's (NYSE: MOT) share of global handset sales has fallen from about 22% three years ago to 12%. Its cell phone division revenue is dropping at a rate of over 30% and loses money ever quarter.

For Motorola to break back into the black, it not only needed to launch new products to pick up market share, but it also needed the worldwide handset business to stay healthy. No such luck.

According to Reuters, "South Korean mobile phone makers Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have cut their 2009 sales targets as a global downturn spreads." By most accounts these companies and other large manufacturers like Sony Ericsson and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) have the financial resource to weather a tough year or two. Not so at Motorola.

Motorola had planned to spin off its handset unit, but that has been delayed. The company's other businesses are profitable, so the cell phone business is dragging them down. MOT shares are off 75% this year to just over $4.

As hard as it would have been to imagine a year ago, Motorola may still have to dump its cell operation and perhaps put it into Chapter 11. Its fate is that grim. It needs to escape its employee and creditor obligations to make it.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) is dead. That has been written before, but now the company needs an official funeral mass. According to The New York Times, "Palm's chief executive, will announce the debut of a new smartphone primarily for business customers - the Treo Pro." The company also has several other handsets in development.

Palm is now up against smartphone products from much larger companies like Samsung and Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Not to mention the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone.

In the last year, Palm had an operating loss of $105 million on a shrinking revenue base that fell to $1.32 billion. The company has $398 million in current and long-term debt.

Palm is not going to make it as an operating company, but it might be a good licensing entity. That would involve cutting almost all of the company's staff and licensing its brand and product designs to another company, perhaps Samsung or LG. The Palm name still carries some modest weight in the U.S.

Palm's revenue might drop to $100 million, but its costs would be negligible. It would, at least, make a profit, which is something that is out of the question with the company in its current form.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

Remember Goldstar, the inexpensive color televisions brand popular in the 1970s and '80s? Those televisions were manufactured by a South Korean firm called Lucky Goldstar, founded after WWII to make appliances and chemicals. Today, that company is known as LG, one of the largest conglomerates in the world, famous for its high quality phones and plasma televisions. And soon it may be the owner of General Electric's (NYSE: GE) appliance business.

GE announced two weeks ago that it might sell its appliance unit. BusinessWeek and The Wall Street Journal are reporting today that LG is watching the GE situation very carefully. GE wants to exit the appliance business due to intense price competition from manufacturers in Asia. The New York Times speculated that the transaction would be similar to IBM's sale of its computer brand to Lenovo a few years ago. The purchaser would have a few years to continue using the GE badge before going solo with its own brand.

Based in Kentucky with 13,000 employees, the appliance division is one of GE's oldest and a real piece of Americana. Founded in 1907, it invented a number of everyday products, including the room air-conditioner and the toaster oven. However, it suffers from low growth rates and contributed 'only' $7 billion to GE's revenue last year, out of $173 billion total. Analysts think it could bring in $5 billion in a sale.

GE has plenty of high growth businesses in transport, medical imaging and energy, so selling its appliance business makes sense in some calculations. But I don't know -- somehow buying a refrigerator or microwave won't be the same. Yet another chunk of American manufacturing muscle is being shipped overseas, and I wonder what the country will do when virtually all of its basic production capacity sits in other countries.

As Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) continues sliding into irrelevance in the mobile phone industry, it could slip to number four in the global cellphone rankings. After Korean giant Samsung Electronics handily beat Motorola in 2007 for the number two spot, and has held it ever since, Korean company LG is poised to overtake the third spot from the American cellphone icon later this year.

LG has come on strong in recent years, with hits like the LG Chocolate, a phone that has sold 18 million units since its debut a few years ago. LG also has a huge fan in the U.S. in the form of No. 2 cellular carrier Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD). So, the soon-to-be top-three mobile phone lineup for global sales include a Finnish company and two South Korean companies. Motorola, poised for fourth place soon, would be followed by Sweden's Sony Ericsson.

Although Motorola has tumbled in recent years and is in the worse shape it could possibly be in, LG's rise hasn't been because of its competitor's stumbles. LG and Samsung both have made massive gains with high-end handsets, slick marketing and awesome designs in recent years, and have propelled themselves on their own merits over and above the competition.

All this without having a blockbuster like Motorola's RAZR, which sold 50 million units and still sells on store shelves today. As Motorola knew back in 2005, but seems to have forgotten today, design is where it's at and LG and Samsung both have it right now. As a result, Motorola seems to continue sliding down the pole of handset makers that just can't seem to compete any longer like they once did. I doubt newer CEO Greg Brown can fix that, but he may not have to.

"We think it'll be the best phone ... this year. It will kill the iPhone," Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless Chief Marketing Officer Mike Lanman said of his company's new LG manufactured handset. Reuters writes that Verizon will launch the new phone for the holidays. It will have a touchscreen keypad and full web browser.

But, the new handheld will be from LG, not Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). Verizon management decided to speak before they thought. Its new handset may do fine, but the iPhone is not a handset, it is an experience. Verizon should know that. The iPhone is part of the iPod and iTunes way of life. People don't just own an iPhone because it is a nice piece of equipment. They own it because Apple made it.

The new Verizon handset will have a hinge that opens to a second screen with a normal keypad. Just in case people want to go "old style." In other words, the new phone is a compromise, not part of a revolution to change the cellular industry.

As one analyst told Reuters, "People who want a high-end media phone and want to stay with Verizon will certainly give that one a hard look. I don't know that it would pull anybody away from an iPhone." Meaning, all Verizon is doing is keeping some of its own customers, which is a worthy goal all by itself. The LG handset may be no more than a defensive move to keep customers from leaving to AT&T (NYSE: T) to get the Apple product.

Verizon's LG phone is like the Zune. It may work fine, but it is not from Apple. It does not have access to iTunes. It's lame.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

I like to call them "superphones" but the industry phrase is "smart phones," and the best of the bunch still exist in our collective imagination and in sparkling light-on-black press photos on the internet: the Apple iPhone (due out June 29), the LG Prada ("late summer") and the Foleo, a companion to the Palm Treo (more "late summer").

While many of the details are known, of course, I haven't actually touched any of these superphones. But that's part of the deliciousness. I can already tell you which one I want to have in my big purple knitted bag immediately (the iPhone) and which I'm fine admiring from afar, and on the cover of US Magazine (LG Prada) and which I might only buy if I was far more idle and in possession of way more disposable income than I now have (Palm Foleo).

Face it: the LG Prada phone is not about utility. The Prada phone is all cool. That said, it seems to have lots of the same great features of the iPhone: the nice high-res camera, the touch screen, the pretty sleek shape. It does e-mail and IM and music and internet, all with space-agey sounds.

But how does it rate?

What is it? The LG Prada is a mobile phone that you can also use as a prop for photo shoots when you and your 105-pound friends are putting together your runway portfolios (score two cool points). And, as a bonus, you can take photos for said portfolios, and then set them as your wallpaper with the cool click of your French-manicured finger. Like the iPhone, it plays music and movies (score two cool points), it takes photos (score one each on usefulness and coolness), it has a touch interface (another point each for usefulness and coolness).

How much? It's certain that the LG Prada will be offered over the Verizon (NYSE: VZ) network, although it's not certain how much it will be in the U.S. In Europe, the phone is selling for (about) the equivalent of $800, so we'll go with that: $800.

With Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) already operating a huge mega-store in China, the consumer electronics retailer is considering entering the Indian market, according to reports. Minneapolis-based Best Buy is talking to privately owned Vivek Ltd., an established electronics retailer in India, to determine if a retail experiment or a full entry into India would be a good move for the retailer. India's increasing affluence and growing middle class make major urban centers ripe for larger retailers looking to diversify their businesses internationally.

In addition to connecting with Vivek, Best Buy folks were recently in India to talk to manufacturers like LG, Samsung and Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) -- that is, to feel out these companies for what it is like to operate in India. Although the possible partnership between Best Buy and Vivek would most likely be a sourcing and technical arrangement instead of a way for Best Buy to "test the waters" of Indian retail, the potential for a Vivek partnership is still intriguing.

It gives Best Buy knowledge of the market dynamics without a huge risk and allows the company to prepare for a national store launch with the best planning possible should it decide to enter the Indian market. If so, Best Buy's international plans in both China and India will have the retailer singing a happy tune not just in the U.S., but globally.

I know, you're all waiting eagerly for the release of the iPhone, Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) long-awaited mega phone. Or maybe you've decided you're an upscale type and are willing to wait even longer for the U.S. release of LG's Prada phone (currently sold in Europe for about $800 USD, and to be offered on the Verizon (NYSE: VZ) network), expected in "late summer" 2007. Didn't you realize there's a third option for the status-hungry, dripping-with-money types?

For only $300,000, or thereabouts, you could be dripping in mobile phone-ness with the Vertu "Signature Cobra," pictured here. Only eight of the phones -- encrusted with 439 rubies and wicked emerald cobra eyes -- will be produced, but you'll have to special-order. Vertu is known for its excessively fashionable technology; its phone service features a "concierge" button which connects you to personal assistance for travel, restaurants, and events.

While the concierge sure beats the Apple iPhone's ability to Google "Starbucks" and then call and order 4,000 lattes (haha Steve! you're such a funny one), I think I'd rather have yummy technology than eye-popping jewelry. And wouldn't it suck if you left your phone in a cab?

This week, LG Electronics (based in South Korea) is getting a bit more fashionable. The company is going to launch a sleek new cell phone. In fact, it is without buttons, as is the case with Apple, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AAPL) new iPhone. But, instead of creating a new brand, LG is teaming up with Prada.

I had a chance to interview Donna Flagg, who is a branding expert and the CEO of The Krysalis Group. According to her:

"It makes perfect sense for Prada to extend into cell phones because the strength of their brand is in accessories, and in today's times the cell phone has become perhaps the ultimate accessory. And since Prada typically appeals to a post-college customer, what better way to attract younger generations than to make their most valued possession (or one of them at least) into a status symbol at the same time. In fact, technology is to kids what designer labels were to their predecessors - it's a part of how they identify themselves. And unlike fashion labels, technology, especially cell phones, appeals to both genders equally. So as a move, conceptually, it's a good one. But all of that being said, they are competing with iPhone, so aside from the prestige label, the design has to measure up to the $700.00 price point and compete with Apple's ability to produce extremely well designed products."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Motorola has been on a telecom tear recently, with its venerable RAZR cellphone model recently passing the 50 million sold mark in under two years from its introduction. The company, under two-year CEO Ed Zander, has seen a resurgence unlike any in the last couple of decades, mostly on the back of that single RAZR model. Of course, it's built an entire product arsenal on top of the "slim phone" concept that American consumers went bonkers over, and now Motorola has slim phones in every style for every price and with almost every major wireless carrier in the U.S.

Based on that, it stands to reason that Motorola is, by far, the most popular wireless handset brand in the U.S. right now, with almost a third of the market (32%). Global leader Nokia has less than half that amount at 16%, and it's tied with Korean maker LG Electronics. Samsung is in third place with 15% American marketshare. What does this bode for Motorola?

First off, the company's public perception is red-hot right now based on such a sizzling product portfolio. Nokia, which wrestled the global marketshare crown from Motorola over a decade ago, has seen slight declines in global marketshare while Motorola has seen gains at the Finnish giant's expense. Can Motorola regain the global marketshare lead in wireless handsets? It still has a long way to go to get there, but don't put anything past the company. A positive balance sheet, a huge amount of positive public perception and undeniably cool products -- even if they are not the most cutting-edge -- primes Motorola for fantastic future growth.

Brian White has worked in various executive positions in technology and telecommunications and now focuses on editing and writing.