It's hard enough for Motorola's handset division to go about its business these days without losing talent, but losing executives to Apple's iPhone team? That's just a straight-up slap in the face, and Moto's not gonna take it lying down. The We Generation has filed suit against Michael Fenger, the dude running its handset business for the EMEA market for six years until March this year, when he quit to take up a posh job as Apple's veep of global iPhone sales. That isn't a problem in itself -- businessfolk switch teams all the time -- but it seems Mr. Fenger had an agreement in place not to work for a competitor inside of two years following his departure. Moto claims he "was privy to the pricing, margins, customer initiatives, allocation of resources, product development, multiyear product, business and talent planning and strategies being used by Motorola" (not to say that data's worth much more than the paper it's written on these days) and wants over a million bucks back plus a court order banning him from working for Cupertino for those promised two years retroactively to March 31; non-compete clauses generally aren't valid in California, but since this one was executed in Illinois and the case is filed in Chicago, they've got a shot here. Note to current execs still out there in Schaumburg: better start righting that ship you're on, because you ain't getting on a more buoyant one without a fight.

[Via CNET]

Things have been looking pretty bleak for Motorola and its attempts to salvage its handset division for some time now, but a number of analysts are now painting an even clearer picture of just how bad things might be. According to BusinessWeek, some analysts are saying that with spin-off plans looking less and less likely, Motorola may revert back to its original plan to sell off the handset division outright, although Envisioneering Group's Richard Doherty says it "would be lucky to fetch $500 million." As BusinessWeek points out, that very same analyst pegged the business at a hefty $8 billion just last year. Analyst Richard Windsor of Nomura even went so far as to say that Motorola might actually have to pay someone to take the division off its hands. Now that's an idea we can get behind.

[Via Unwired View]

It looks like Motorola and Verizon are getting ready to take a third crack at the Q9 form factor, following up the Q9m and Q9c -- and this time around, there's a little something extra in store. On top of the EV-DO Rev. A radio, the so-called "Napoleon" (codename, of course) features GSM, because -- surprise, surprise -- businesspeople who use Windows Mobile devices tend to do just a bit of traveling. It looks like Moto has taken this opportunity to give the Q9 meme a little nip-tuck job, too, with a rounded body and a tastefully-applied ring of chrome around the top edge. They've even tossed in a fingerprint scanner for good measure, a tip o' the hat to the suits who'll undoubtedly populate the upper 90 percent of this sucker's client base. No word on a release date or price, but can we cautiously submit a thumbs-up for the design direction here?

Shoot, all Motorola had to do was change from pink mahogany to this nice, normal, compliant shade of black, and that would've been enough of an update to justify a model name change. There's more, though: the V9x will officially offer AT&T Navigator, the Telenav-powered navigation system already found on the Z9, and we can see from these press shots that it'll even work on the secondary display, which is pretty trick. This appears to be the same update that we'd originally heard would drop way back in January, which means we can likely expect Video Share support as well. Take a stroll on over to Engadget Mobile for the full gallery.

Remember that touchscreen Motorola Blaze we'd mentioned a while back that was on the hook to get Verizon's visual voicemail service? It may not be in Verizon stores yet, but it's all up in Boy Genius Report's labs with a dark red body, MING attitude, and almost limitless mediocrity on board. The touchscreen apparently requires ridiculous amounts of effort to actuate, and that problem is compounded by a lame on-screen keyboard that makes texting tricky at best. EV-DO Rev. A is cool and all -- and the visual voicemail support should be a pretty popular add-on feature -- but that giant Motorola logo up front with the red ring and three pounds of chrome leaves the Blaze with a face only a mother could love. Let's hope Verizon's positioning this one as its low-end touchscreen offering, because we're not seeing it cha-chinging many registers otherwise.

As expected, T-Mobile has taken the wraps off its very own version of Motorola's ROKR E8, a glossy black candybar offering a 2 megapixel camera, 2GB of internal storage (plus a microSD slot that'll swallow up to 8GB more), stereo Bluetooth, 3.5mm headphone jack, FM radio, and that so-called "morphing" keypad that selectively renders keys invisible depending on the mode you're using. It's missing 3G, but that's one feature T-Mobile customers are all too well acquainted to missing out on -- and considering that the just-announced flagship ZN5 doesn't even do any WCDMA, it shouldn't come as any surprise. Subscribers and would-be subscribers will be able to nab the E8 come July 7 for $199.99 on contract.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Hints of Motorola's new MOTOZINE series of devices have gone back as far as last year, but today marks the first time that Moto's officially spilled any beans on the goods. The headlining feature on the first model, the ZN5 candybar, lies on the backside: a 5-megapixel sensor courtesy of a partnership with Kodak, featuring autofocus, a xenon flash, image stitching, and on-device integration with Kodak Gallery. Otherwise, you get WiFi (score), Motorola's so-called "ModeShift" technology for morphing the keypad depending on device mode (a la the E8), and a run-of-the-mill quadband GSM radio with EDGE. China's the first country to get the hookup starting next month, but Moto expects to take the ZN5 on a world tour over the course of the remainder of the year.

We won't say that Motorola's on the up and up, but just after ridding itself of that pending litigation between it and Carl Icahn comes word that a fresh face will be succeeding Ed Zander as non-executive Chairman of the Board. David Dorman, former chairman and CEO of AT&T, has been selected by Moto's Board of Directors to take over Zander's chairman seat after he retires on May 5th. According to Greg Brown, president and CEO of the company, he feels that Dorman is "ideally suited to serve as Motorola's chairman," and he made known his excitement about working with Dave as it "moves forward with its plan to create two independent publicly traded companies and improve the performance of the Mobile Devices business." Good luck in there, Mr. Dorman.

[Image courtesy of USA Today]

Good news coming from the Motorola camp? Say it ain't so! The long-standing feud between the flagging company and investor Carl Icahn has finally come to an end, and lo and behold, the pending litigation between the two has even been dismissed. Apparently the two parties managed to agree that (effective immediately) Keith Meister, a managing director of the Icahn investment funds and principal executive officer of Icahn Enterprises would be "appointed to serve on the [firm's board of directors]," and William R. Hambrecht, founder, chairman and CEO of WR Hambrecht + Co. and co-founder of Hambrecht & Quist, would be "nominated for election" during the 2008 annual shareholders meeting. Heck, Moto's even soliciting Mr. Icahn's input in dealing with the hopeful separation of businesses -- but then again, it would probably take advice from just about anyone given the current state of affairs.

During the first episode of the new season of Criminal Minds, FBI agent and resident neat-freak David Rossi just couldn't shake the unsolved double homicide that he never could close a score ago. Oddly enough, that wasn't the only mystery involved, as we're still scratching our heads trying to figure out what's so important on the lid of Mr. Rossi's RAZR2. Maybe a super-secret 4G icon? Tommy Tutone's most favorite dame's number? The infamous Sad Moto face? Whatever it was, we're fairly certain a highly concealed RAZR2 is superior to the lowly RAZR Derek Morgan is still getting issued. What's a man got to do to get a leg-up, anyway?

The tough times just don't seem to end at Motorola -- the company announced today that it's laying off another 2,600 workers, for a total of 10,000 positions eliminated since the start of 2007. That's on top of the various high-level executive departures that have been taken place lately, not to mention the company's plan to split off its mobile phone business, which will undoubtedly lead to more cuts down the line. The goal is to reduce costs by some $500M by the end of the year, and some of the jobs being lost come as Moto closes a factory in Singapore and a WiMAX development lab in Florida. There's no word on when the cuts are going to come, but here's hoping all these aggressive steps lead to a little vacation for Sad Moto here.

Just in case you missed it, the Verizon XV6900, Motorola Q9c, and LG enV(2) are all finally launched on Verizon. Head on over to Engadget Mobile for the full details.

It's not every day that we hear about a Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard device that lacks any cellular hardware whatsoever, so when we do, it's sort of like winning the lottery except way less exciting and profitable. Enter the first volley of devices to support Motorola's new Total Enterprise Access & Mobility initiative -- TEAM, conveniently -- which represent just the very front end of a whole infrastructure solution for business campuses looking to replace their desk phones with something just a little more mobile and modern. Eventually, TEAM will support true VoIP-cellular handoff, but in its initial form, it'll be WiFi only, making these first handsets very unique indeed. We don't have the complete picture on specs here, but they'll support push-to-talk, text messaging, and as we mentioned, they'll be loaded with the very latest and greatest that Windows Mobile have to offer when they launch later this year.

[Via PC World]

Merely days after Stu Reed racked up as he waltzed out of Motorola's doors for the final time, and nary a fortnight after the same firm's chief marketing officer did the same, along comes word that two more bigwigs have now left the building. Effective immediately, Larry R. Raymond has replaced Steve Strobel as treasurer, while Stephen Nolan "is taking over as the head of mobile devices in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)" -- a position that was held by Mike Fenger just last week. According to a company spokeswoman, the "leadership changes are part of an overall plan to swiftly transform the senior executive team." Hey, if it's lookin' for turnover, it's certainly doing something right. [Warning: Read link requires subscription]

[Via PhoneScoop]