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To refine its products for emerging markets, Motorola is turning to its local experts. One-third of its engineers work outside the U.S. Engineers at Motorola's software-development center in Bangalore, India, suggested that the address books for phones sold in India ought to allow more room for surnames beginning with S to accommodate all the Singhs, Sens and Srinivasans. In China, the challenge is different. There are more high-end consumers, but Motorola has to distinguish itself from market leader Nokia and a host of Chinese competitors. Again, Motorola drew on the local knowledge of its engineers in Shanghai to develop a phone, sold only in China, that can recognize 6,000 Chinese characters written with a fingertip on the touch-sensitive screen. Competitors' phones in China require a stylus.
Blurring the lines between engineering, design and marketing comes naturally to Zander. He may be an engineer by training, but he has always been more of a salesman at heart, more interested in getting products to market than making them. After graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic with a degree in electrical engineering, he took a job at Raytheon, mainly to avoid getting drafted in the Vietnam War. Although he was proud of contributing to Raytheon's work on the Apollo space program, "it was hypocritical," he admits. "I was against the war, but I worked for a defense company." That was the last time he worked on something he didn't believe in. He got his M.B.A. and then went to Data General, where he eventually talked his way into a marketing job. At Motorola he tries to stay close to customers and to his products. On a five-day, three-city tour of India this summer, he met with all of Motorola's major Indian customers. At home, he spends at least one day a week in Motorola's downtown Chicago design center. "I go out and hang out there," he says. "It's great. I'm the old guy."
In many parts of the world, great phones and aggressive marketing will not be enough. The infrastructure to support mobile-phone service doesn't exist. So Motorola is making another calculated risk, pushing to sell the backbone networks for new mobile-phone systems in developing countries. As with its full-spectrum strategy for mobile phones, Motorola pitches itself as a company that can provide an initial network that is easily and cheaply upgraded as a country's mobile-phone market develops. Warrior acknowledges that building the network is no guarantee that consumers will buy Motorola phones and use them, but "Motorola handsets will work better," she says.
One potential advantage is an agreement that Motorola expanded in September with a trade group called the GSM Association to sell phones priced at less than $30 to 10 carriers operating in 17 Third World countries. That deal could add as many as 6 million phones and an estimated $192 million to Motorola's revenue in the first half of the year. Alongside those basic phones, Motorola will sell models with radios and cameras. "Everyone has realized that cellular-telephone service is not a luxury," particularly where there is no conventional phone service, says Raghu Rau, head of strategy for Motorola's networking business.