Motorola chief resigns

Ed Zander has announced today he as resigned his posts as Motorola chief executive, effective 1 January 2008 and as chairman in May next year.

The mobile handset manufacturer confirmed Zander had chosen to resign for personal reasons, while also confirming its current chief operating officer, Greg Brown would replace him as chief executive.

Zander has recently come under pressure to turn around the company's fortunes after the company turned its first, modest profit in the last financial results released for its third quarter. The company suffered losses in the previous two quarters.

The company had also faced criticism for not building on the success of its RAZR V3 handset, which was launched at the end of 2004. No model it has brought since has matched its popularity, passing the 50 million units sold mark last July.

The outgoing chief had also overseen 3,500 cost-cutting job cuts during his-four tenure had promised to cut costs by $400 million (£193.4 million) by year-end.

Motorola shares rose nearly one per cent after news of Zander's departure broke earlier today.

But his replacement Brown has refused to comment on any change of direction of strategy that may be heralded by Zander's resignation.

"It's about building on the ones we've made, continuing on the momentum," said the incoming chief executive in a phone interview with Reuters.

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