It's difficult to say that Motorola is an iconic brand in cable and IPTV, since it only became a big-time vendor after it acquired cable pioneer General Instrument. On the other hand, when new owner Arris (Nasdaq: ARRS) removes the brand name from its product line within a year, it will mark yet another paradigm shift for the former industry duopoly of Scientific-Atlanta--now Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO)--and General Instrument.
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Stanzione (Image source: Arris) |
Arris Chairman and CEO Bob Stanzione apparently feels that the name is less important than what the two companies will become when merged.
"I think it clearly gives us the scale to compete with anyone in the world," Stanzione said in a Multichannel News story. "I think it creates a company that's the premier provider of video and broadband technology in the world."
It also, he admitted, creates some overlap, because Arris is "not shedding any assets" but will in many instances be combining existing technologies such as the Arris Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) gear with Motorola's product. Other areas where Arris has no products, such as set-top boxes, will just be rebranded.
"There will be some overlap, there's no question about that," Stanzione said. "We're going to do that as quickly as possible and keep the employees in the loop to know what's coming to the very best of our abilities. I emphasize that when we're finished we're going to have more resources, not less resources, than what we start out with."
Arris acquired the Motorola business unit from Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) which, having never been in the hardware business, much less the cable/IPTV supplier space, had less inclination to do anything with the brand. Among other things, Stanzione said, that means an appreciation of Moto's home base operations in Horsham, Pa., as "one of the very, very key facilities" for Arris.
That facility will go the way of Motorola-branded set-tops and other networking gear, however, and bear the Arris name.
"It (the brand) will be phased out over a period of one year," he said. "We have one year to get that done. Our aim is to have that done on or ahead of schedule."
For more:
- Multichannel News has this story
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