Motorola Reports Weak Earnings

Motorola, who makes the Dragonball chips that power all Palm powered handhelds, made their fourth quarter report yesterday and earnings were down 41% over the same quarter last year. They still made 15 cents per share. Sales, however, were actually up 11%.

Robert L. Growney, president and CEO, said, "Despite the higher sales, increases in manufacturing costs and operating expenses caused operating profits to decline. Steps will be taken in 2001 to return the corporation to generating growth in its earnings."

Motorola has been working hard recently to keep their chips in future Palm OS handhelds. Palm Inc. said last year they would begin using ARM-based chips in the future. OS 5, due in 2002, is being written for these. Back in December Mororola licensed the ARM chipset and announced a plan for integrating ARM chips into its DragonBall product line in 2001.

Motorola is also a Palm licensee and is going to make a Palm-based smartphone that will be available next year. They also own Metroworks, the company that makes the popular development tool CodeWarrior, in which most Palm apps are created.

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