More on the Motorola Split: An Insider Tell-All

Engadget editor-in-chief Ryan Block posted an eye-opening tell-all from one of Motorola’s top insiders concerning today’s stunning spinoff of the company’s fabled handset business. The report contains the full text of a letter written by the late Geoffrey Frost’s personal adviser at Motorola; until Frost’s death in 2005, Numair Faraz worked under the Motorola’s former CMO—the man widely regarded as the father of the RAZR, the report said.

According to Block, Faraz personally asked Engadget to publish his letter to Motorola, its board of directors, and MOT investors everywhere regarding the “company’s egregious missteps and mismanagement.” The letter goes into everything from former CEO Ed Zander’s stunning missteps, to the current CEO Greg Brown, to whom Faraz wrote:

“Your appointment to the position of chief executive gave me cause for hope, and I reached out to you; I knew you were one of the main drivers behind the enterprise acquisitions, and that you had zero expertise in consumer devices. Surely you could use some help in turning Motorola’s flagging cellphone business around?

“But apparently different from the rest of the incompetent senior executives at Motorola—except instead of merely being inept, you’re actually actively killing the company. Your lack of understanding of the consumer side of Motorola doesn’t give you a valid reason for selling the handset business; moreover, publicly disclosing your explorations of such a move, in an attempt to keep Carl Icahn off your back, shows how much you value the safety of your incompetence.” You can find the full letter, along with Engadget’s commentary, here.

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