Motorola

interviews

CEOs Who Lost Their Jobs Talk About What Went Wrong

Fortune's new article "Lessons of the fall" is interesting and entertaining for two reasons. First, it ~~humanizes~~ brings a human face to the usually remote CEO, in this case the exes at Motorola, Starbucks, and Jet Blue. But more important if you're a wage slave who can admit to a little schadenfreude, it describes how each man was fired from his job. Former Starbucks CEO Jim Donald, who's in his fifties, says the hardest thing was letting his mother know:

First phone call was to my mom. Probably the toughest day I've ever faced, ever. Ever, ever, ever! Because moms have a way of putting their sons up on pedestals. I said, "Mom, how are you?" And she goes, "Great. Why are you calling me at ten in the morning?" I just said, "Hey, I just want to tell you, I'm not with Starbucks anymore, but everything is fine."

More »

2:48 PM on Fri Jun 6 2008
By Chris Walters
7,653 views, 30 comments

Latest by krom: Let's boil it down. Neeleman: Board members are dumbasses. (So basically, the corporate model is inherently crap.) Donald: Everyone is disposable, no matter how well you do. Including me. Zander: Board members are impatient, greedy dumbasses. Despite that, and despite being fired, I'm more »

complaints

Motorola Flip-Flops On Flap Failure

When reader Stuart bought his Motorola Razr V3XX, he was pleased with the phone but could not understand why the tiny flap covering the charger port was held in place by only 2 fragile plastic hinges. As if channeling the spirit of Nostradamus, Stuart made a startling prediction: This flimsy flap will fail. And it did. Twice. The first time, Motorola happily sent Stuart a new flap. But when the flap failed again 8 months later, Motorola unleashed a volley of red tape that left Stuart stuck. Stuart's letter and Motorola's response inside... More »

3:23 PM on Fri Apr 25 2008
By Jay Slatkin
4,229 views, 42 comments

Latest by n/a: @Scuba Steve: Dear Stuart, Please accept my apology for the inconvenience caused. Can you respond and advise if the issue mentioned below is resolved? Thank You, Dorothy Hodges Corporate Consumer Advocacy Office more »

contact info

Phone Problems? Contact Motorola Executive Customer Service

Reader Chris' phone was swallowed up by the beast that is Motorola's repair department, so he asked us for help. All we had was the main Motorola number that we swiped from Google Finance, but it was enough.
Chris writes:

I went looking on Motorola's website for a corporate office phone number without any luck, until Meghann pointed me to the company's Google Finance profile, which listed the phone number. I called and requested to be transferred to Ed Zander's office. After being queried as to the nature of my call, I was instead transferred to their Customer Advocacy group.

More »

11:43 AM on Fri Jul 6 2007
By Meg Marco
4,416 views, 7 comments

Latest by nevergiveup: This was the greatest. My phone had also fallen in the black hole of Motorola. Their $55 door to door service, guarenteeing 3 day service, Righttttttt!!!! Motorola got my phone, but immediately couldn't find it in there repair facility. Why they needed to find more »

ceo gossip

Motorola CEO: "I Love My Job. I Hate My Customers."

A piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day about Motorola's desperate search for a successor to the Razr reveals a "favorite refrain" of Motorola CEO Ed Zander, "I love my job. I hate my customers." More »

12:19 PM on Wed May 2 2007
By Meg Marco
4,348 views, 25 comments

motorola

Customizing the Motorola Vxxx

Here's a cool guide for hacking your Motorola Vxxx (x being a wildcard) so you can make it show the color styles, shutdown and startup animations, outer text displays, etc, that you want. More »

4:59 PM on Fri Apr 27 2007
By Ben Popken
614 views, 19 comments

time warner cable

Time Warner And The Magical Smoking Modem That Is Entirely Your Fault

Let it be known that if your modem starts smoking after a Time Warner tech was just at your house messing with it, it's your fault for not having their branded router. Reader Paul writes:

I live in Columbus Ohio, and have been a Road Runner subscriber for about 10 years. We also have digital phone from Time Warner (TW provides the RR service in Columbus.) Our digital phone service went out on Monday morning. We called from a cell phone, and they sent out a tech this morning to fix it. He did. At around 3PM, 4-5 hours after he left, the Internet and phone service both went out (The Internet had not gone out on Monday when the digital phone went out.) I unplug the modem, plug it back in; standard stuff. It still won't assign me an IP. I call them from my cell phone, and they confirm that it is out from their end as well. The person tells me that I can continue plugging it in/out just to test it periodically. I do. When plugged it in at 4:30, however, I hear a crackling noise, and see smoke. My modem has fried. Smells like crap, freaks my 9 year old brother out

More »

3:58 PM on Mon Feb 26 2007
By Meg Marco
2,754 views, 12 comments

Latest by n/a: A@AcidReign: Actually, there is some substance to those claims. 90% of those "gold splitters" stores love to price gouge and sell you lack what is known as a reverse path. If you know anything about how a signal travels through more »

unlock phones

HOWTO: Unlock Your Phone

Now that your phone is your own, you can unlock it. Depending on the type of phone it is, unlocking can be as simple as getting a code from your phone company, or as difficult as "drilling into a shield over the main circuit board to tap into the right contacts and kicking the phone into a special diagnostic mode to get at the unlocking code." Uh, yeah. Thankfully there are smart people at PC Magazine who can give us the lowdown on the formerly shady practice of unlocking a cell phone.Yay! More »

12:15 PM on Fri Dec 8 2006
By Meg Marco
11,508 views, 15 comments

Latest by natems: I've had good luck with Cingular unlocking phones even with a brand new (less than a month) contract. I just called and told them I was going to an area of Indonesia where their map indicated no partner service more »

motorola

Motorola DVR Possessed By Evil

Laura's DVR is possessed. After months of living with a flickering, psychotic DVR and getting the usual Comcast run around, Laura patiently waits for her 5th replacement box. In the meantime she's suffering through life with a possessed DVR. More »

1:51 PM on Mon Nov 6 2006
By Meg Marco
1,868 views, 22 comments

motorola

Verizon Sells Customer Impossible KRZR

A base assumption of consumerism is that the product you buy will actually work. This, as we all know, is rank naivete. But it is also apparently naive to believe that the product you just purchased actually exists: it doesn't. More »

7:38 AM on Mon Oct 9 2006
By consumerist.com
3,572 views, 13 comments

verizon

Verizon Wireless: "You're All Wet."

Katy calls Verizon Wireless when the screen on her Motorola RAZR breaks for no reason. The CSR tells her she must have gotten it wet. Katy points out that for this to have happened, an unprecedented miracle would have had to occur, in which her purse's contents suddenly transmuted to liquid then immediately transmuted back. They strongly insinuate she's lying. More »

6:31 AM on Fri Sep 22 2006
By consumerist.com
2,250 views, 21 comments

updates

Happy Day of Labor!

Today is a bank holiday for the Gawker Media Network but that doesn't mean that the fickle wheel of commerce stops keep spinning round. Here's some updates on consumer's stories we reported on last week. More »

11:11 AM on Mon Sep 4 2006
By Ben Popken
80 views, 1 comment

complaints

Another Motorola V3i Stops Working For No Good Reason, Wants $175

Independent confirmation and the plot thickens! More »

complaints

Motorola V3i Stops Working For No Good Reason, Wants To Charge $175

ConsumerAvenger bought a Motorola RAZR v3i quad-band world cellphone on Ebay, with warranty. The phone had full bars wherever she went. Two months later, it stopped working completely. More »

11:37 AM on Wed Aug 30 2006
By Ben Popken
854 views, 24 comments

the news

The News; Uniquely Toxic and Loving It

• Well that was awfully nice of them. [LAT] "Novartis to Invest $600 Million in Flu Vaccine Plant in U.S"
• The Wall Street Journal finally catches up to USAToday. [NYT] "Front Page of Journal to Get Ads"
• Wearing a laminated and platinum studded version of this will be the next big thing in bling. [NYT] "Study Documents 'Ghetto Tax' Being Paid by the Urban Poor"
• "We don't really know if the drug works; no one is claiming it works better than other, safer drugs; and we're flying blind as far as safety goes, except for our own A.D.R. data that suggests telithromycin is uniquely more toxic than most other drugs." [NYT] "Approval of Antibiotic Worried Safety Officials"
• As per Bernanke's advice, glad to hear you're slowing your roll. [CT] "Consumer Inflation Drops in June"
• Marketplace dominion is nice, but you haven't really made it unless you inspire cult-like devotion. [CT] "Razr Hits Milestone; Motorola stock lags"
• Apparently, Florida is at a bit of a risk for grapefruit bruising. [CT] "State Farm to hike Florida rates 53%"

11:52 AM on Wed Jul 19 2006
By Ben Popken
60 views, Comment

radiation

Top 10 Non-Mutating Cell Phones

That gigantic pulsating growth bulging out of the side of your head sure is socially awkward, isn't it? Your fellow movie theater patrons incessantly complain about the fluorescent glow. The erratic squirting of radioactive goop has ruined many a bar mitzvah. And you certainly aren't comfortable with what you suspect is the growth's nascent sentience, exhibited in the hypnotically commanding undercurrent of murderous thoughts which you can hear sometimes at night. More »

6:28 AM on Thu May 18 2006
By consumerist.com
126 views, 2 comments

motorola

Complaint: Motorola & UPS Refuse To Replace Lost RAZR

What starts with a D or maybe a P and caused Motorola to efuse to give reader Julie W. her Razr back? A mystery signature on a UPS slip! Oh, and did we mention that Julie's house was trashed in Hurricane Katrina? More »

7:20 AM on Wed Apr 5 2006
By consumerist.com
312 views, 1 comment

Bank Of America Gives You A Sales Pitch When You Call To Ask Them To...

Gawker Media Network

SUBSCRIBE TO Consumerist