Hangzhou Motorola Cellular Equipment, a joint venture between Motorola and Hangzhou Eastern Communications, will cease cell phone production by the first quarter of 2009, underlining the extended woes of the US communications giant's troubled mobile phone business. The mobile phone production line will switch to producing TV set-top boxes in the future, said Chen Lei, a spokersperson of Motorola China.

Motorola is cutting 4,000 more jobs as consumers stave off purchases amid the economic recession. Revenues in the fourth period fell to between US$7-7.2 billion. Sales of US$7 billion would represent a 27%drop from a year earlier.

Research In Motion (RIM) is suing Motorola, alleging that the mobile phone company improperly blocked the BlackBerry maker from hiring current and laid-off Motorola employees.

This option enables Motorola, within a specified time period, to enter into a pre-negotiated license agreement with Tessera and settle all outstanding litigation between the companies. If Motorola exercises the option and takes the license, it will pay royalties on all its products that include chips that use Tessera's technology and are sourced from companies who are not Tessera licensees. Detailed terms of the agreements including the time period, option fees, license fees and license royalties are confidential.

The iPhone may be the only game in town for serious mobile Web developers right now, but that won't last long. Next year, the iPhone will see some serious competition from Google's Android platform. Of course, T-Mobile will start selling the first Android phone, the G1 made by HTC, on October 22. But other cell phone manufacturers are gearing up for a major Android push.

This is the third quarter in a row that has shown a year-over-year decline in cell phone sales, and this quarter claimed the lowest total sales since NPD Group began tracking this data in 2005. The 28 million cell phones sold in the second quarter represent a 13% decline from last year. However, total revenue only declined by 2%, meaning the average cost per cell phone is up 14%. Motorola’s most iconic and successful phone, the Razr, was popular largely because of its simplicity and usability.

Under these agreements, Motorola will supply CMCC with GSM network equipment and a range of services. The expanded and optimized GSM networks will then be deployed across 16 provinces and municipalities within the coverage area of CMCC, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Sichuan, Zhejiang, Henan, Hunan, Guangdong, Yunnan, Fujian, Hubei, Shanxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Jiangxi, Anhui and Guizhou. These contracts also enable China Mobile to deliver enhanced and value-added multimedia functionality and services.