Motorola

Paul and Joseph Galvin scraped together $565 in 1928 to start the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in a rented Chicago loft. Their first product, a battery eliminator, let radios that normally ran on batteries plug into household outlets. Sears, Roebuck and Co. became their first customer. Two years later, the company introduced a car radio that fit under a dashboard, a first for the industry. Paul Galvin coined the brand name Motorola by blending "motor" (from motorcar) with "ola," a suffix suggesting sound. The name meant "sound in motion." It stuck so well that in 1947 the company renamed itself Motorola Inc.

During World War II, Motorola developed the SCR-300 backpack transceiver, the first FM portable two-way radio. Soldiers nicknamed it the walkie-talkie. The device weighed 35 pounds but gave troops battlefield communication over a 10 to 20 mile range. After the war, Motorola kept innovating. In 1946, its equipment carried the first calls on Illinois Bell's car radiotelephone service. The company moved into semiconductors in the 1950s, eventually producing the 68000 family of microprocessors that powered early Apple, HP, and Sun Microsystems computers. Then came the DynaTAC. In 1983, Motorola launched the first commercially available handheld cellular phone, the DynaTAC 8000X. It cost $3,995 and charged for 10 hours to deliver 30 minutes of talk time.

The 2000s were brutal. The RAZR, a smash hit in 2004, could not sustain the company through the smartphone revolution. From 2007 to 2009, Motorola lost $4.3 billion. On January 4, 2011, the company split into two independent public entities. Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI) inherited the public safety and enterprise communications business. Motorola Mobility took the consumer handset division and, after passing through Google's hands, landed with Lenovo in 2014. Both companies continue to operate under the Motorola brand, but they serve very different markets. [edit]