Google and Handsets

In 1985 I was asked to have lunch with Bob Galvin at Motorola. We went to the company cafeteria and he had a peanut butter sandwich, which as I age I also have become fond of, and I had a tuna salad. He asked me for some advice on Motorola getting into the data service business. He said (paraphrased):

"We make a billion dollars of pagers and the paging companies sell a billion dollars of service every year, and we make tens of billion of cell site infrastructure, and hand sets, and the cellular carriers make billions every year. We have this radio data service, and I want to see how we can get Motorola into the service business. Let me know how to do it?"

I spent a few months and discovered several things:

1. In 1985, 1986, data was doable with the Motorola KDT terminal, IBM field service used them, but the problem was one needed an application internally to get it going. I remember talking to Kraft to try to get them on board, but they saw the potential yet it would take a few years an tens of millions of software development. Thus timing was too early. Not that way now.

2. I then met with Motorola sales. They were great, except they sold hardware, instant gratification. You sold the brick, and sold as many bricks as you could. They had no idea about the service business.

These two observations have resonated for years. Timing and culture. Too early, you may be the inventor, but the world forgets. Culture, hardware sales and service sales are often at odds. In one you get instant gratification and in the other you develop a lasting relationship. In fact a good service business is one where you never get a customer service call.

So today I was baffled by the Google buying of Motorola set business. Why would the world's best service provider buy a second tier manufacturer? That puts them into conflict with all others, and they want to get Android out there.

It will be interesting to see what happens, but Bob Galvin's words ring in my head. Bob was a great leader, a great human being. He knew this market better than anyone. Which is why he was concerned mixing apples and oranges, service and products. A worthy concern indeed.