Motorola, the world's second largest maker of mobile phones, yesterday announced plans to supply other manufacturers with all the basic technology they need to make the next generation of handsets.
The company is looking to capitalise on the wealth of intellectual property built up by its team of researchers dotted across Europe and the US.
Like many hi-tech companies in the recent technology downturn the Chicago-based group has realised it can make more money by licensing basic technology to other manufacturers and concentrating on producing its own cutting- edge products.
Motorola will sell all the basics needed for a handset that can work with 3G networks and the interim technology known as GPRS. That will allow manufacturers to concentrate on their own designs for the exterior of the handset and its screen. Motorola is drawing comparisons with the situation in the PC market where the winners were the manufacturers of microchips rather than the companies whose names were emblazoned on the front of the box.
A spokesman for Motorola's semiconductor unit, which will provide the service, explained: "We are providing the guts of the phone. This deal allows smaller companies to produce their own handsets."
However he denied that Mo torola intends to pull out of producing handsets, explaining that the company intends to continue producing its own more advanced phones.
Analysts said the deal throws down the gauntlet to other handset companies. But a spokesman for Ericsson was unimpressed, saying the Swedish company already allows customers to use its patented technology in handsets - for a fee.
Motorola's technology will be made available to equipment manufacturers such as Birmingham-based Sendo, which yesterday announced it has attracted investment from Microsoft. The US software group is spending about $12m on a stake of under 5% in the company, which produces custom-made phones for customers such as Virgin Mobile.
Sendo is one of several manufacturers around the world producing Microsoft's Stinger smartphone, which uses an operating system developed by Microsoft in direct competition with a system produced by Symbian, a consortium that includes Psion and Ericsson.
Another Symbian member, Finland's Nokia, yesterday announced a tie-up with Spanish mobile operator Telefonica Moviles to develop a new range of mobile services for the next generation of mobile phones.
