Zander bows out of CTIA keynote

Ed Zander, Motorola Inc.’s CEO, will not appear at CTIA Wireless 2007’s keynote address on Tuesday next week, as originally scheduled.
He may well be hunkered down, working on The Plan to Save Motorola.
(Despite several days’ notice, neither CTIA nor Motorola could offer an explanation for the cancellation.) Perhaps the message is: I’m dealing with the nitty-gritty, no time for the stage and its requisite smiles.
Few seem to doubt that Motorola is capable of decking the competition. The question seems to be how and when. Pressure to reveal The Plan is ratcheting up. Quarterly results are due in mid-April and the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting is May 7.
A clear, positive message about Motorola’s sales prospects and new products and flexibility in improving both is needed now, according to two analysts. Even then, Zander’s message could be over-shadowed by investors’ focus on irrefutable metrics, such as the handset vendor’s first-quarter margins.
So far, The Plan appears to include lowering expectations-see CFO Dave Devonshire’s recent, repeated use of the imprecise term “rocky” to describe the next few quarters-and pleading for patience, as Zander did before a Goldman Sachs audience earlier this month.
But analysts said the CEO of Motorola needs to be more explicit about The Plan.
“Investors need clarity now,” said Tero Kuittinen, analyst at Nordic Partners Inc. “Everyone knows this will be a crisis-management summer. But what does that mean to Zander? He has to find a way to convince investors that he’s flexible in making a turnaround.”
Carl Howe, analyst at Blackfriars Communications Inc., agreed.
“He’s got to generate excitement and prove that it’s not boring, old Motorola,” Howe said. “Talk about what’s in your pipeline. Give one or two teasers and tell everyone you can’t say more.”
“This is a test of ‘his’ Motorola,” Howe added. “If he handles it well, it’ll continue to be ‘his’ Motorola.”