http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2458774,00.asp
After less than a year, Motorola Mobility will shut down the Texas factory that has been producing its flagship Moto X smartphone. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Fort Worth plant will close its door by year's end. About 700 people work there now, though it employed as many as 3,800 late last year, the paper said. Motorola Mobility's new president and COO, Rick Osterloh, said the move is unrelated to its pending sale to Lenovo. When Google announced plans to sell the Motorola Mobility smartphone business to Lenovo for approximately $2.91 billion earlier this year, reporters questioned execs about the fate of the Texas Moto X plant. But they dodged the question, saying only that Lenovo will evaluate what's best for the company. The Lenovo deal is still pending. But it appears that what's best for the company is to make the Moto X in China and Brazil. Motorola did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Osterloh told the Journal that "the North American market was exceptionally tough." The Moto X was revealed in Aug. 2013, and Motorola talked up the fact that it was a U.S.-made product. While the phone was well-received by reviewers, it struggled to compete against other smartphone behemoths like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Note 3, as well as the iPhone 5s and 5c when they launched in the fall. In Sept. 2013, PCMag visited the Texas plant, where then-Motorola chief Dennis Woodside said the company "chose to be optimistic about the future of both technology and manufacturing." At the time, workers were only taking up about half of the 480,000 square feet of floor space at the plant, and Motorola had an eye on an expansion that's no longer in the cards. Check out the slideshow above for more images of the facility. In recent months, Motorola has shifted its focus to affordable, no-contract devices, like the $179 Moto G and $129 Moto E. _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews_etskywarn.net
