Motorola Confirms Symbol Buyout
Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) confirmed this morning that it will buy Symbol Technologies Inc. (NYSE: SBL) for $3.9 billion in cash.
The deal will make Motorola the No. 2 supplier in the enterprise wireless LAN market, as well as give as giving the cellphone manufacturer a significant stake in the ruggedized device and RFID markets.
Motorola will pay $15 in cash for all outstanding Symbol shares. Subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, the deal will close late in 2006 or early in 2007. Symbol will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Motorola once the buyout is completed. Motorola says it intends to maintain Symbol's Holtsville, N.Y. headquarters to serve as "the core of Motorola's global enterprise mobility business."
"Symbol could use some stability," says Jack Gold of J.Gold Associates, "and the investment that Motorola would bring could also propel the marketing, something Symbol has not been very good at." Symbol's shares rose a few pennies after the deal was announced. Symbol closed the day Monday with a stock price of $14.67 on the NYSE. Motorola was trading slightly down this morning.
— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung
The deal will make Motorola the No. 2 supplier in the enterprise wireless LAN market, as well as give as giving the cellphone manufacturer a significant stake in the ruggedized device and RFID markets.
Motorola will pay $15 in cash for all outstanding Symbol shares. Subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, the deal will close late in 2006 or early in 2007. Symbol will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Motorola once the buyout is completed. Motorola says it intends to maintain Symbol's Holtsville, N.Y. headquarters to serve as "the core of Motorola's global enterprise mobility business."
"Symbol could use some stability," says Jack Gold of J.Gold Associates, "and the investment that Motorola would bring could also propel the marketing, something Symbol has not been very good at." Symbol's shares rose a few pennies after the deal was announced. Symbol closed the day Monday with a stock price of $14.67 on the NYSE. Motorola was trading slightly down this morning.
— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung
wlanner
12/5/2012 | 3:40:27 AM
re: Motorola Confirms Symbol Buyout
Not really. Symbol is #2 in revenue, but sells to retail, warehouses, etc... They don't play at all in the corporate enterprise with their Wi-Fi offering. They make a very good product for a low margin, low feature market segment where the user population consists of scanners.They don't have the feature set required to go head-to-head with Cisco in the enteprise where the user population is much more complex.
Let's put it this way:
Ciso sells switches and routers - "You want wireless with that?"
Symbol sells scanners - "You want wireless with that?"
Two different places to get your fries.
Do you think Motorola will go head-to-head with Cisco in the WLAN market? Or will they concentrate on RFID and work on new apps like fixed/mobile convergence.
What do you readers think?
-- DJ