The Wall Street Journal-20080114-Motorola-s New Devices Target Retailers- Hand-Held Scanners Derive From Purchase Of Symbol Technologies
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Motorola's New Devices Target Retailers; Hand-Held Scanners Derive From Purchase Of Symbol Technologies
Motorola Inc. hopes to beef up sales to the retail industry with two new kinds of hand-held scanners designed to speed customers through supermarket checkout aisles and make shop-floor assistants more productive.
The scanners, to be demonstrated at the National Retail Federation trade show opening today in New York, are among the first batch of hand-held devices to come out of the Symbol Technologies Inc. business since it was acquired by Motorola last year.
The $3.9 billion acquisition of Symbol was aimed at extending Motorola's reach with corporate customers. Motorola hoped to use Symbol's technology to produce a sturdier version of its hand-held email device called the Q, while using Symbol to boost its sales to customers in manufacturing, health care and retail. Motorola hasn't announced a date for rolling out a new version of the device.
Driving growth from the Symbol acquisition has become important for the Schaumburg, Ill., company, given the problems of its handset business, which accounts for about half of Motorola's sales. Motorola's market share in the cellphone business has dropped in the past year due to declining sales of its once-popular Razr phone.
Amid rising investor pressure to improve performance, Chief Executive Ed Zander stepped down at the end of 2007. He was succeeded by the company's president, Greg Brown, who until last February oversaw the division that included the government and enterprise businesses and led the acquisition of Symbol.
Buying Symbol made Motorola the leading supplier of bar-code scanners and other wireless devices used throughout the retail industry. Motorola hopes to build up its retail-industry presence with the devices it plans to showcase today.
One is a cellphone-size bar-code scanner that connects to a retail outlet's wireless system, letting floor personnel access product information as well as communicate with other employees via walkie- talkie or direct calls.
Motorola said the value of this device, priced at more than $500, is in cutting losses from shoppers who walk out of stores when they can't find products on the shelves or when checkout lines are too long. "Most consumers return to the places where they've had good shopping experiences," said Mark Self, vice president of world-wide retail for Motorola.
It is unclear how receptive U.S. retailers will be to the device. Stores are increasing their technology spending on things such as information kiosks and wireless systems, but they are unlikely to buy hand-held devices for every employee, said Dave Hogan, chief information officer of the National Retail Federation. "In the near term, it's not that realistic to give every associate a device," he said.
The other device to be demonstrated is a personal shopping assistant unveiled last year that lets consumers check prices and "scan and bag" as they put products into their cart to speed their way through checkout. The first retailer to roll it out -- a deal will be announced today -- will be the Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. chain, which has 180 stores in New England and is owned by Ahold NV of the Netherlands.
Motorola hopes this device will be attractive to retailers because it is designed to receive targeted promotions wirelessly. A customer holding the device could, for example, receive a coupon for yogurt right after scanning a milk carton. Ad revenue from such coupons would flow to the retailer, thereby potentially cutting the expense of the device. "Retailers are becoming finely tuned to the concept of one-to- one marketing," said Bob Wesley, head of Modiv Media Inc., which developed the software for the device.
