OSAKA, Japan-Japanese industrial firm Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., which makes phones under the Panasonic brand name, announced a sweeping reorganization that will see the company shut down its GSM and GPRS phone-making business-as well as its Symbian OS efforts-to refocus exclusively on building 3G phones running a Linux operating system.
The company said it will retreat from the GSM mobile-phone business due to “severe global competition.”
As part of the reorganization, Matsushita will shut down its U.S. research and development center in Georgia, which counts 228 employees. The company will also shut down its research and development and manufacturing operations in the United Kingdom, the Philippines and the Czech Republic.
Matsushita will shift manufacturing operations in China from GSM to W-CDMA.
The company’s embrace of Linux technology-and its rejection of Symbian-is notable. Linux has recently been gaining traction in the worldwide mobile-phone market as an inexpensive alternative to Symbian, Windows Mobile and other high-end phone platforms.
“In this way, Panasonic Mobile will further strengthen technological foundations for next-generation mobile terminal development on a global basis, as well as reinforce its mobile terminal business in Japan,” the company said in a statement.
Matsushita is not the first company to crumple under the stress of competition in the phone market. Siemens AG and Alcatel each recently sold their phone-making businesses, while U.K. vendor Sendo filed for bankruptcy. Motorola Inc. recently acquired the assets of Sendo.
