Reinvention is nothing new for Motorola. For the past two summers, I've interned with Motorola Solutions at there facility in Plantation, Florida. My grandfather worked as a security guard there 35+ years ago and now I am there as a software dev. intern. It was strange, on my first day, a senior engineer told us interns that Motorola was in the strange transition from a "hardware company to a software company." There was a lot of talk and general anxiety in the air about where the company was headed. As this post mentioned, the fire and ideas seemed to be nonexistent. My mentor would tell me that it was our job to primarily focus on the radios and release upgrades over long time periods. Nothing was being built or researched, only maintained and slightly tweaked. There was neither passion nor excitement at the company. Towards the end of the internship, the company sold part of the business to Zebra technologies and with it some of the employees. Many physicists and electrical engineers were let go. The factory and learning center was shutdown and the company decided to sell the facility. We currently rent back a small portion.

Currently on the premises, there is a small Motorola Mobility office, whilst owned by Lenovo, still has a very Google feel when you look through their glass windows. There have been talks of various healthcare companies and even Magic Leap moving into the other vacant area we used to inhabit.

I still have hope in this company. I'm currently into the second internship and the gears are starting to move rapidly. I'm very happy to be working on some projects that I definitely see putting Motorola Solutions ahead of the game in public safety systems. And when I doubt if coming back from such a hit is possible, all I have to do is pull open my cubicle drawer and look at the pile of Motorola M6800's.