Why did Motorola stop making Neuron Chips and Sell its Echelon holdings?
It’s hard to be certain. Here’s Motorola’s official answer: “Motorola is transitioning from being an embedded silicon supplier to an embedded systems solutions creator,” said Hector Ruiz, president of Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector. “This transition has caused us to discontinue a number of products that are inconsistent with our strategic direction. Now that we have helped the Neuron Chip to become a high-volume, standard product, we believe that the production of this device can be well supported by other semiconductor suppliers.” Motorola is no longer a five percent shareholder, and thus its stocks sales are not required to be reported to the SEC. In other words, we don’t know how much stock, if any, Motorola continues to hold. Interestingly, Motorola recently announced that it was using Echelon’s Lonworks-based power line transceivers in its PowerCom buy-as-you-use energy program, so the relationship doesn’t appear to be particularly sour.
