Edward Zamp took over the presidency of Motorola from the previous president, Christophe Galvin, in December 2013.
Edward Zamp was the first president of Motorola not from the Galvin family, which held considerable historical significance.
Regarding this Edward Zamp, an insightful celebrity short story titled "Motorola President's Wise Choice of Successor" was published in Zhiyin magazine in December 2004.
The original text is quite long, so a brief summary follows.
It states that Motorola's president, Christophe Galvin, was over 70 years old and planning to retire, thus needing to select a successor. Two individuals made the final cut: Edward Zamp, 50, and John Gerjed, 51.
Both candidates seemed suitable, and Galvin was in a quandary about whom to choose.
One day, the three of them went hiking together. Galvin, on a whim, proposed a competition to see who could reach the summit first on foot.
Neither man found the challenge strange; instead, they believed their boss was testing their physical fitness, as managing a global company required robust health.
Thus, they began their ascent on foot, while Galvin himself took the cable car to the top.
An hour later, John Gerjed was the first to reach the summit, having run most of the way up.
Another hour passed before Edward Zamp arrived.
At this point, Galvin happened to notice cameras on both of them and proceeded to check their camera storage. He discovered that John Gerjed had not taken a single photo.
This was understandable, as he had been sprinting up the mountain, genuinely competing.
Upon examining Edward Zamp's photos, dozens of beautiful mountain vistas were found. It turned out that Edward Zamp had been delayed because he was constantly stopping to photograph the mountain scenery.
When Galvin retired at the end of the year, he appointed Edward Zamp as the new president and CEO of Motorola.
Galvin then made a post-retirement statement, which read: "I intended to assess their physical condition through the mountain climb, but after reviewing their digital cameras, I made a new discovery: John is excessively driven, with his eyes solely fixed on the goal. Such individuals, while decisive and efficient, are prone to overreach and taking risks that could endanger the company. Zamp, however, is someone who appreciates his surroundings and possesses a balanced approach. Entrusting him with the family business left by my grandfather, I am at ease. Motorola currently requires stable development, not rapid expansion."
[This article is genuine. Those interested can search for that particular issue of Zhiyin. This article left a deep impression on the author, who at the time was improving his writing by reading extensively, and subsequently developed a passion for photography (dog emoji).]
Let's not dwell on the many questionable aspects of this article, such as Galvin genuinely intending to test their physical condition.
Furthermore, Christophe Galvin was forced out by the board due to the disastrous Iridium project. Before leaving, he was compelled to sell all of the Galvin family's shares in the company, making it far from a typical succession.
Of course, in a way, being forced to sell shares at that point was a considerable profit compared to the company's eventual demise.
As for Edward Zamp, he was also chosen by the board as the successor, with no involvement from the elder Galvin.
Secondly, the companion on the hike was not Edward Zamp or John Gerjed, but Ed Sander.
However, one cannot entirely fault this, as Ed Sander and Edward Zamp are essentially the same person, with the discrepancy arising from translation issues.
The name Edward Zamp was used before 2012, a transliteration by Chinese people.
Ed Sander, on the other hand, is how his name was translated into Chinese by later translators of his autobiography, based on the English transliteration.
This might seem like a standard error, but upon closer examination, one realizes that "Edward Zamp" is a typical name for an old white male.
Whereas "Ed Sander" is a common name among Indian-American individuals. Indeed, Ed Sander was an Indian-American who spearheaded the movement to "Indianize" American tech companies in Silicon Valley.
Before 2012, Chinese people assumed American tech leaders would naturally be old white males, unaware of the rise of individuals of Indian descent at that time.
However, since everyone called him Edward Zamp before 2012, then Edward Zamp he shall be.
Ahem, I've strayed from the topic. Let's get back to it.
If our Boss Huang encountered a situation like the one described in the article, he would unhesitatingly fire Edward Zamp. I suggested a running competition, and you took it lightly, stopping along the way to take photos and making me wait an extra hour on the mountain, enduring two hours of cold wind. Are you afraid I, a seventy-year-old man, will die later than you?
However, this article is valuable in a way, as it perfectly illustrates Edward Zamp's operational style.
That is, he is steady, very steady, prioritizing the board's interests, and thus, the stock price.
Therefore, in the future, we will witness many peculiar actions from Edward Zamp.
Firstly, on his very first day of official work, Edward Zamp directly vetoed an acquisition deal, reasoning that it would consume significant funds only to acquire a company that offered no real value.
He deemed it a waste of company money and thus decided to scrap the acquisition.
As a result, Edward Zamp missed the opportunity to acquire Huawei from China, which was Huawei's only significant chance to be acquired by a foreign enterprise. At the time, negotiations were already 80% complete, awaiting Edward Zamp's approval. However, Edward Zamp rejected the proposal.
This decision deeply humiliated Huawei at the time, leading them to completely abandon their reliance on foreign enterprises and embark on a path of self-driven scientific research, ultimately becoming the colossal telecommunications enterprise that is now tens of times larger than Motorola at its peak.
Following this, Edward Zamp made a classic decision, a truly classic decision.
Indeed, the name of this approach is "Classic."
Edward Zamp believed that an excellent mobile phone company should not continuously alter its phone designs like other market players, attempting to release various novel handsets.
They should simply take historical classic phone models, make minor adjustments, such as offering a richer color palette to meet consumer demand, and leave everything else unchanged.
Consequently, for several years, Motorola exclusively pursued a path of classicism and retro design, with phones resembling previously best-selling models, but with new "skins" released annually.
The outcome, as one might expect, was predictable. This led to Motorola falling behind even during the feature phone era.
Then, in 2005, Edward Zamp made another "classic" decision: to collaborate with Apple.
At that time, Apple's iPod was very popular, and its iTunes store was also highly successful. Many users enjoyed purchasing music from the store, and the transaction volume was immense.
Edward Zamp, grappling with Motorola's declining profitability, made a conservative decision to partner with Apple, integrating the iTunes store into Motorola phones. This would allow Motorola to capture a significant portion of intermediary fees, generating substantial revenue. xxs壹贰
This strategy appeared very successful at the time, bringing Motorola over $2 billion in profits within two years. Edward Zamp thus successfully navigated a crisis of confidence with the board.
Furthermore, Motorola became the only phone brand besides Apple's own to feature the iTunes store, a unique achievement.
However, software was not Motorola's forte, especially when integrating the iTunes store into their phones. This required improvements at the underlying system level, something Motorola was incapable of doing.
Apple, being very accommodating, offered to complete this task, helping Motorola embed the iTunes store for free. However, Apple also lacked expertise in mobile phones. Therefore, they requested that Motorola provide a phone team to explain the fundamental logic of mobile phone manufacturing to Apple, to understand the entire hardware manufacturing process, so that Apple could perfectly integrate the store into the phones.
Edward Zamp found this reasoning sound. After all, if the iTunes store was to be used on Motorola phones, Apple would surely profit. Thus, their offer to develop the program for free was only natural. Edward Zamp promptly dispatched his elite team.
However, this elite team soon discovered that Apple's team was interested in far too many aspects, so much so that it seemed they weren't just aiming to embed a store, but rather to manufacture a phone from scratch.
In response, Edward Zamp dismissed this as a Russian joke and paid it no mind.
Then, the iPhone was born.
Following the advent of the iPhone, Edward Zamp was furious. He made his first and only aggressive decision that could have potentially changed Motorola's fate: to initiate an acquisition of Apple, making Apple a subsidiary of their company.
This was not impossible at the time. Before the iPhone's release, Apple's market capitalization was less than $20 billion, while Motorola's had soared to $65 billion. If they were willing to sacrifice, they could capture the wolf.
But unfortunately, Apple's resistance was resolute, continuously increasing the acquisition cost for Edward Zamp. Finally, when it came down to risking the entire Motorola Group in an all-or-nothing bid to acquire Apple, Edward Zamp faltered. He reverted to his cautious nature, deeming it unnecessary to bleed Motorola dry for the sake of a computer company, and thus abandoned the acquisition of Apple.