Motorola

Tina mentioned it a little while ago, but here's the whole scoop on Motorola buying NextNet...

NextNet has been around for about 5 years but a little over a year ago they were puchased by Clearwire. Clearwire is basically an ISP so they would buy NextNet hardware to build out their networks but NextNet could also still supply their previous customer's with hardware as well. NextNet was considered a "wholly owned subsidiary". Craig McCaw is the owner of Clearwire...he's some billionaire who had originally started up what was to become AT&T wireless or something. This was good for NextNet since there was plenty of money to put into the company to make it grow...and it has. There are probably at least 15 new employees since I started and for a company of about 130 that's pretty good!

Now comes Motorola. They've been buying up a few companies to get into the WiMax business but none of them have really been proven and don't have any real number of users. The NextNet equipment doesn't quite adhere to the WiMax standard, but the technology works and there is a large paying customer base inplace. So Motorola found this attractive and can get into the market right away. Clearwire gets a good deal out of it because in addition to Motorola investing in Clearwire, Intel is also on board for twice as much investment as Motorola. The idea is to get the few technologies Motorola has been acquiring together to get a product that can do it all. So Motorola gets a pretty good deal by acquiring the technology, Clearwire gets a pretty good deal by having large investors to expand into more markets. NextNet...well, nobody's convinced that the deal is all that great for NextNet. There are concerns over relocation and consolodation, but Motorola assured us that there are no plans to move anyone [yet]. Everyone will be retained and will be kept at their current salary levels (except maybe some of the big-wigs...they might get a sweeter deal). The benifits will get a little better but the details haven't been brought around yet (401k match of 6% for instance).

The close date should be in about 30-60 days, so by September we will be Motorola emplyees. I don't expect too many changes at first, but we will have to implement new policies and procedures and I expect some documentation changes such as ECO's. We probably won't get free pop any more either! There were a lot of concers from those who have stock options (not me). Sounds like they're getting a little screwed in the deal but that's primarily due to government regulations since the Enron scandal.

So, that's it in a nutshell. I went from a large company to a small one back to a big one! I checked the websites and Motorola has fewer employees compared to Raytheon (63000 vs 80000), but Motorola is a $30 billion business compared to Raytheon at $20 billion.

As a side note...when I was finishing up at Tech I wanted to work for Motorola.