Motorola is to separate its struggling mobile handset business from its other operations, in a move to create two separate publicly traded companies that comes after months of agitation from disgruntled investors led by corporate raider Carl Icahn, Motorola’s second-largest shareholder. Several handset makers, including Nokia and Sony Ericsson, rejected the case for buying Motorola’s handset business. Lex says Motorola’s decision to split looks like a way of getting Icahn “off the board’s back”. Whether it works is anyone’s guess. A more substantive issue is how far it helps fix Motorola.
