Segway spent $100 million in research to make its transporter. Chinese rivals stole their IP and put them out of business by undercutting them, because they didn't have the same overheads or sunk costs.
Ninebot, one of those Chinese firms, eventually bought Segway for pennies on the dollar.
Long-time former Moto employee here who worked 20 yrs in advanced corporate R&D. Moto made LOTS of strategic errors during those years. True, promoting business relationships w/ China was one of them, and cost them in the long run (breaking news: Chinese companies lie A LOT and for the most part make crappy stuff), but to fully scuttle a wildly successful company of that size takes way more f-ups than just that (easily enough for a book or two).
Obviously they read it as "look - a billion people who don't have cell phones - or any phones at all! And look at all that cheap, cheap labor!" But then proceeded to make a bunch of mistakes that would ultimately lead to those billion people buying phones from other companies.
I agree. I can't remember the exact dollar amount, but I believe well over 3 billion was sunk into the Iridium satellite project. The idea being that all those unserved cell areas would buy a phone. Turns out, Chinese peasants didn't have the $4k it took to buy a satellite phone.
"We want to export your jobs to someone willing to work for $5/day, so if you could fire those letters off to your members of Congress, that would be great."
I loved motorola products. Had a motorola pager that I still have. No matter how many times I dropped it, got it wet, left it in the cold or heat, it worked.
Thank the Democrats (Bill Clinton) and Bush era NeoCons for all of this.
None other
Motorola was a great American success story, and contributed to the Allied war effort.
End result: never trust China.
Segway spent $100 million in research to make its transporter. Chinese rivals stole their IP and put them out of business by undercutting them, because they didn't have the same overheads or sunk costs.
Ninebot, one of those Chinese firms, eventually bought Segway for pennies on the dollar.
Long-time former Moto employee here who worked 20 yrs in advanced corporate R&D. Moto made LOTS of strategic errors during those years. True, promoting business relationships w/ China was one of them, and cost them in the long run (breaking news: Chinese companies lie A LOT and for the most part make crappy stuff), but to fully scuttle a wildly successful company of that size takes way more f-ups than just that (easily enough for a book or two).
Obviously they read it as "look - a billion people who don't have cell phones - or any phones at all! And look at all that cheap, cheap labor!" But then proceeded to make a bunch of mistakes that would ultimately lead to those billion people buying phones from other companies.
I agree. I can't remember the exact dollar amount, but I believe well over 3 billion was sunk into the Iridium satellite project. The idea being that all those unserved cell areas would buy a phone. Turns out, Chinese peasants didn't have the $4k it took to buy a satellite phone.
I'm sure Chris made out well though.
"We want to export your jobs to someone willing to work for $5/day, so if you could fire those letters off to your members of Congress, that would be great."
Boeing is doing the same thing with Chy-Na and India. Boeing is now the largest single exporter by value: https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-imports-and-exports-components-and-statistics-3306270
What will happen to our industrial base when Chy-Na and India are building their own airliners?
why "free trade" is BS
Hey, I shot a huge fucking hole in my foot and a Chinese dude is sitting at my desk. Wat do?
I loved motorola products. Had a motorola pager that I still have. No matter how many times I dropped it, got it wet, left it in the cold or heat, it worked.
I still use Motorola phones.