How Motorola Solutions has ruled the emergency radio market

Motorola holds an estimated 80 percent share of the market for pricey public-safety radios in cities, counties and states across the country. Here are some of the ways the company has maintained its dominance:

Proprietary features

Proprietary features

For years, Motorola embedded proprietary features in radio software, dispatcher consoles and other equipment, meaning that it couldn’t interact with non-Motorola radios. Customers seeking to hook new radios to existing equipment had to stick with Motorola.
Technological edge

Technological edge

The U.S. telecommunications industry didn’t implement uniform design standards until about 2005, a decade after Europe did. Motorola kept a step ahead in meeting the standards with new products. It also sold proprietary encryption and other add-ons.
Revolving door

Revolving door

Motorola’s 22,000 employees permeate the industry. Company officials have landed key government contracting jobs in cities and counties from New York to San Francisco to Anchorage, and they sometimes help award business to their ex-employer.

Revolving door

William Bratton headed police departments in Boston, New York City and, from 2002 to 2009, Los Angeles, a position in which he also served as vice chair of a countywide joint powers authority that was formed to purchase new regional public safety communications networks. In January 2011 Motorola Solutions named Bratton to its corporate board, compensating him with over $750,000 in cash and stock over three years. Bratton, who denies discussing the Los Angeles County procurement with government officials while he was a director, was named to a second stint as New York City police chief in January.

Revolving door

Michael Hayden served as director of the National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005, as principal deputy director of National Intelligence from May 2005 to May 2006 and as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from May 2006 until retiring from federal service in February 2009. He joined Motorola Solutions’ corporate board in 2011.

Revolving door

Karen Tandy left her job as administrator of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in October 2007 to take a job as senior vice president of Motorola, Inc.’s Global Government Relations and Public Policy Division. Tandy, an heiress to the Tandy/Radio Shack fortune, is married to FBI agent Steve Pomerantz, who headed the bureau’s counter-terrorism unit. She kept her job with Motorola Solutions when the company split in two in 2011.

Revolving door

Haley Barbour registered to lobby for Motorola Solutions in the spring of 2012, shortly after ending his eight-year run as governor of Mississippi. During his tenure as governor, Mississippi awarded Motorola upwards of $300 million in contracts to build new statewide two-way radio and broadband networks. He is also a former chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

Other outside lobbyists for Motorola Solutions:

  • Shimon Stein, former senior policy adviser to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.
  • Malloy McDaniel, former policy adviser and whip liaison to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. And former floor assistant to former Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.
  • Katherine Gronberg, former subcommittee staff director, Senate Appropriations Committee
  • Scott Reed, former manager of Bob Dole’s 1996 Republican presidential campaign
  • Beverly Pheto, former staff director, House Appropriations Committee
  • Erskine Wells, former deputy chief of staff, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and former chief of staff, Rep. Steven Palazzo.

Lowball bids

Lowball bids

Motorola seems to put up a tenacious fight for every contract, big or small, and has won major contracts in Los Angeles and Mississippi with lowball bids – prices so low that they appear to test the limits of federal antitrust laws.
Donations cops and
firefighters
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Donations cops and firefighters

2006 to 2011, Motorola donated more than $20 million to law enforcement and firefighting foundations, sponsors conferences hosted by big city police chiefs and bankrolls a public-safety advocacy group in Washington.
'03 '04 '05 '06 '07 '08 '09 '10 '11 '12

Donations cops and firefighters: Governors

2003 to 2012, Motorola donated more than $2 million to the Republican and Democratic governors associations.
2004 2006 2008 2010 2012

Donations cops and firefighters: PACs

Since 2006, Motorola's political action committee has contributed about $500,000 in campaign donations to congressional and presidential candidates each two-year election cycle.
Sole-source contracts

Sole-source contracts

Motorola has routinely won sole-source contracts, including in nine of the nation’s 20 largest cities. Local and state officials have skipped competitive bidding on grounds such as:
  • They want to preserve existing equipment that won't interact with non-Motorola equipment
  • The original contract written 10 or 15 years ago was competitively bid
  • They can save money by piggybacking on the terms of a contract written in another city
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Source: McClatchy Washington bureau
©MCT2014
Graphic: Danny Dougherty