subject: Motorola Cell Phones: How They Came To Be [print this page] Motorola Cell Phones are made by Motorola, an American company with many "firsts" in the history of science and technology. It was founded in Chicago, Illinois as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in 1928 and its first product was a battery eliminator. When the company started making car radios in 1930, its name was changed to a made up word, a word made up by founders Paul and Joseph Galvin as a combination of "motor" and "Victrola," a type of early phonograph.
Indeed, many of the company's first products were radio-related, from the battery eliminator for radios to the first walkie-talkies in the world in 1940. Who could have predicted that Motorola Cell Phones would one day exist or that they would have competitors like Metro PCS Cell Phones? In 1943 the company went public and by the 1950s its main business was manufacturing and selling radios and televisions. In 1952 it opened its first international subsidiary in Toronto, Canada. In 1955 its research and development laboratory in Phoenix, Arizona introduced the world's first commercial high-powered germanium-based transistor.
1958 saw the company begin work with NASA space flights to provide radio equipment, including those used during the famous 1969 moon landing. 1960 saw the introduction of the world's first 19-inch cordless "portable" television set under their auspices. 1963 saw the company introduce the first ever truly rectangular color TV picture tube; it quickly became the industry standard.
1974, however, found the company selling its profitable television business to another company, abandoning this part of the consumer electronics market. Yet nearly a decade later, the company made history again by becoming the first to receive FCC approval for a commercial cellular phone device. In 1986, they made another contribution with its invention of the Sigma Six quality improvement process. This became a global standard in manufacturing and quality assurance.
Around this time the company became a leader in semiconductor technology, supplying the CPUs for many of the top-selling computer and videogame console brands of the day; its microprocessors were found in various machines, from the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga to the Apple Macintosh and PowerPC family of Apple-compatibles. They also manufactured communications products such as satellite and digital cable systems hardware.
In 1991, the company demonstrated the world's first working digital cell phone system using the GSM standard. Believe it or not, the first Motorola Cell Phones were made in 1991! They followed that up in 1994 with the world's first commercial digital radio system that combined paging, data, and voice cellular dispatching in a single radio handset and network. These additions were needed to keep up with other brands like Metro PCS Cell Phones. A year later the company introduced the first ever two-way pager which allowed reception of text and e-mail to follow with a form response. The year 2000 found the company in partnership with another organization to supply the world's first commercial GPRS cellular network, with the first GPRS cell phone developed by them.
