I worked for Motorola Semi (discrete products) for almost 30 years, most
of which was as a business manager. The problem with semiconductor
manufacturing is that it takes an incredible amount of capital
expenditures for plant and equipment, especially if you need to keep
updating or expanding the wafer fabs. The profit percentage for the
semiconductor operations was decent on average but was highly variable,
and the return on capital was five to ten times worse than it was for
Mot's other operations. Even I thought they should chuck it. I'm sure
they bought Vertex for the design capabilities, and I'd bet the
manufacturing requires rather little capital since much of it is
probably outsourced to various contract manufacturers.
Whether Motorola keeps all of the Vertex stuff is, in my opinion, mostly
a matter of whether they think there will be marketing or design
synergies with their other operations. Hard to say where the amateur
stuff will stack up in that regard, but as far as I know Motorola stills
sees fit to sell the Walkabout series of handhelds so maybe there is
hope. Offhand, I'd bet the UHF/VHF stuff has a better chance of
surviving than the HF gear.
73,
Dave AB7E
Chuck wrote:
> It will likely be the end of the Yaesu amateur line in my opinion unless it
> is sold to another entity. If the semiconductor business did not yield a good
> enough profit for Motorola then the amateur gear is history.
>
> Chuck
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