Motorola hives off networking arm

February 5: Motorola India has hived off its Bangalore-based Internet and networking group ING division which had posted a revenue of R...

February 5: Motorola India has hived off its Bangalore-based Internet and networking group ING division which had posted a revenue of Rs 25-30 crore last year. The staff strength of the division has come down by 80-90 per cent.

Of the 16 employees in the division, 15 have already taken up new postings in a newly-formed company 8211; Convergent Communications India, while the remaining employee will be based in Mumbai.

quot;As per the strategy, Motorola ING Hong Kong will look after its Indian networking operations in coming months. Motorola ING general manager Asia Pacific Benny Young is likely to head the operations from Hong Kong,quot; a senior company official said.

Young said the company was fully committed to the Indian market and the Hong Kong office will be available for providing direct support to large network customers in the country.

He said Motorola India is continuing to invest here and have expanded its software development centre by opening another unit in Hyderabad and a semiconductor design centre in New Delhi.

Though the company is hiving off the unit, Motorola may continue marketing its wide area networking WAN products in the country. For other businesses like modems, routers, ISDN routers, Voice over IP solutions and network management systems, Motorola has appointed Convergent Communications India as its national distributor.

Industry analysts said Motorola was planning a major organisational revamp which would enable the company trim the number of divisions in India. This is mainly to enhance the presence of major divisions in marketplace by regrouping the sectors into three.

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The reshuffling exercise is likely to help avoid confusion among customers about the company8217;s divisions and various services. However, the proposed restructuring is unlikely to have any major impact on the revenue of the company in India.

It is likely to strengthen its customer support in the domestic market. According to the proposal, main focus will be given to consumer products and services which will lead to the emergence of a Motorola quot;consumer divisionquot; in India.

The proposed division is likely to include paging products group, cellular subscriber group, radio products group and radio network solutions group.

The consumer division, which is also likely to include land-mobile products sector, will have products on two-way radio solutions like Smartnet Privacy Plus Radio Trunking equipment manufactured in Bangalore.

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Motorola on Wednesday announced the launch of its V.3600 modem in the country. It is a V.34 data/fax modem which allows users to transmit critical applications at 33.6 Kbps in synchronous and asynchronous environment. The modem is compliant with ITU V.34 standard.