BOYNTON BEACH, Florida, United States—Ending months of speculation, Motorola announced it is exiting the ReFLEX paging business by the middle of next year, an industry the company played a major role in developing.
Motorola said its Wireless Messaging Division, which is part of its Personal Communications Sector, will discontinue its ReFLEX-based products in favor of messaging products for GSM, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and CDMA networks. The company will stop making the ReFLEX-based Talkabout T900 and Timeport P935, as well as all its one-way paging products, by mid-2002.
“Demand still exists for these traditional products; however, Motorola is committed to market leadership,” said Miguel Pellon, vice president and general manager for Motorola’s messaging division. “This means we need to begin now to redeploy our resources and development efforts to transport protocols such as GSM, GPRS and CMDA.”
Motorola said it will continue to provide technical support for the ReFLEX protocol and will continue to offer warranty service for its products. Twenty-one companies have licensed the ReFLEX technology and are in various stages of designing and manufacturing products. Motorola said it will also continue to participate in the Personal Communications Industry Association (PCIA) Paging Technical Committee, which has played a major role in the technical evolution of the paging and messaging industry.
Motorola developed the ReFLEX paging technology, and all major U.S. paging players operate ReFLEX networks. Motorola’s withdrawal follows a similar move by Glenayre Technologies, which in May said it was leaving the paging industry. Together, the two companies formed the basis for the industry’s device and infrastructure side.
The paging and messaging industry has been hard hit in recent years, with most countries reporting significant declines in subscriber numbers. Many had hoped to replace one-way subscriber declines with two-way customers and are still working toward that goal.
Responding to the news, U.S. paging carrier Metrocall said it would begin purchasing two- and one-way messaging devices from several overseas suppliers from Pacific Rim and European nations starting early next year.
