Motorola Solutions Celebrates Its 85th Anniversary

Motorola Solutions is an 85-year-old company with a rich history of innovative solutions that have revolutionized the way the world communicates. From pioneering mobile communications in the 1930s and making equipment that carried the first words from the moon in 1969, to supporting modern-day emergency response equipment for disaster relief efforts around the world, Motorola Solutions has a global footprint with products that demonstrate its thought leadership.

1. On Sept. 25, 1928, Paul V. Galvin and his brother, Joseph, incorporated Motorola’s founding company—Galvin Manufacturing Corporation—in Chicago.
2. In 1930, Galvin Manufacturing Corporation introduced the Motorola radio, one of the first commercially successful car radios. Company founder Paul V. Galvin created the Motorola brand for the car radio—linking "motor" (for motorcar) with "ola" (which implied sound). Thus the Motorola brand meant sound in motion.
3. On June 18, 1930, Galvin Manufacturing Corporation sold two Motorola car radios to W. Oldenburger in Mexico City. This was the first recorded sale of a Motorola-branded product outside the United States.
4. Galvin Manufacturing Corporation began selling Motorola car radio receivers to police departments and municipalities in November 1930.
5. In 1943, Galvin Manufacturing Corporation (later Motorola) designed the world's first FM portable two-way radio, the SCR300 backpack model, for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Weighing 35 pounds (15.9 kg), the "walkie-talkie" radio had a range of 10 to 20 miles (16-32 km).
6. The U.S. Army's first field radio teletype system, deployed in North Africa in 1943, used Motorola FM vehicular two-way radios.
7. In October 1944, Galvin Manufacturing Corporation installed Motorola radios in Yellow Cab Co. taxis in Cleveland, Ohio, the first commercial FM two-way taxi communications system in the United States.
8. In 1948, Motorola developed the Permakay wave filter, a patented invention that made it practical for two-way radios to operate in adjacent channels without interference. The Permakay filter contained 15 tuned circuits sealed in a polyester resin during manufacture. The filter was protected against heat and humidity and only accepted signals within frequencies it was tuned for.
9. Public safety services in Belgium used Motorola two-way radios to coordinate operations during national elections in 1950.
10. Early in 1951, Motorola placed in operation a 1,000-mile microwave system for the Mid-Valley Pipeline Co. in the U.S. In December, Motorola completed another 1,000-mile system for the Texas Illinois Natural Gas Pipeline Company.
11. Motorola’s first international subsidiary, Motorola Canada Ltd., opened in Toronto in 1952. The facility produced Motorola radios and televisions for sale in Canada.
12. In 1953, Motorola established the Motorola Foundation to support leading universities in the United States. The foundation later expanded to support science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, and critical community needs globally where the company operated. Motorola Solutions Foundation continues this mission.
13. In 1956, Motorola introduced a line of commercial transistorized Handie-Talkie portable two-way radios. Designed to operate from two to five days without a battery change, the new radiophones were introduced in two basic series: the "H" series for maximum portability and the heavy-duty "P" series for longer-range communications.
14. In 1958, Motorola introduced the Motrac radio, the world's first vehicular two-way radio with a fully transistorized power supply and receiver. Its low power use enabled users to transmit without running their vehicles' engines.
15. Motorola began distributing products in Brazil in 1960.
16. Through its Dahlberg Company subsidiary, Motorola announced a fully integrated hospital communications system in 1960 that featured a 19-inch Televiewer, a transistorized audiovisual Nurse Call System, and a VHF radio paging system.
17. Motorola established Motorola Israel Ltd. in 1964. The company developed and manufactured two-way radio communications equipment.
18. Motorola established Motorola South Africa (Pty) Ltd. in 1965.
19. Motorola's innovative 1965 design for low-cost plastic-encapsulated transistors became a semiconductor industry standard.
20. In 1966, Motorola developed the world’s smallest portable television receiver at the time. Known as the "Tiny Tim TV" the experimental miniature TV set had a 1-1/8 inch (2.86 cm) black and white display powered by four penlight batteries. The TV was invented by DeLoss Tanner at a Motorola laboratory in Franklin Park, Ill. It never made it to market because no tuner was available that was small enough.
21. Motorola Korea Ltd., Motorola’s first subsidiary in South Korea, opened in 1967 to manufacture semiconductors.
22. In 1968, Motorola began construction on a new semiconductor wafer production facility in Guadalajara, Mexico. The facility was Motorola's first wafer fabrication plant in Latin America.
23. A Motorola radio transponder relayed the first words from the moon to Earth in July 1969. The transponder aboard the Apollo 11 lunar module transmitted telemetry, tracking, voice communications and television signals between Earth and the moon.
24. In 1969, Motorola announced a new subsidiary to engineer and manufacture 8-track stereo car tape players in Stotfold, United Kingdom, and a semiconductor plant in East Kilbride, United Kingdom.
25. In 1970, Motorola formed a Science Advisory Board to increase effective communications between Motorola's technical staff and universities, and to recognize and encourage exceptional creativity and innovation among Motorola engineers and scientists. Eventually the organization was known as SABA (Science Advisory Board Associates).
26. Motorola opened its first sales office in Brazil in 1971.
27. In 1971, NASA's lunar roving vehicle used a Motorola FM radio receiver to provide voice and data communications between Earth and the moon. The “first car radio on the moon" was 100 times more sensitive than a standard car radio and weighed only 1.5 pounds (680 grams).
28. In 1972, Motorola established a subsidiary in Malaysia. Employees of Motorola Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. began manufacturing semiconductors in Kuala Lumpur.
29. Beginning in 1972, Motorola introduced radio communications products in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.
30. On April 3, 1973, Motorola publicly demonstrated the world’s first portable cellular telephone and system. The first public calls using Motorola DynaTAC (DYNamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) technology occurred in New York City. Motorola engineers had been experimenting with radio communications in the 800 and 900 MHz bands since the 1960s.
31. Motorola transponders were used aboard the historic 1975 Apollo-Soyuz "Handshake in Space" docking mission. The American and Soviet space teams met in Earth's orbit to test an international docking system and joint flight procedures.
32. In 1976, Motorola established a research and development department in Penang, Malaysia, to design two-way radios and other communications products.
33. In 1977, Motorola introduced wireless load management systems that helped utilities and other businesses to manage energy usage by remotely controlling equipment.
34. Motorola's DVP Digital Voice Protection system, introduced in 1977, was the first digital encryption technology to provide two-way radio users with a very high degree of voice communications privacy. The first system was installed in Gabon, Africa, for an OPEC meeting. The FCC granted Salt Lake City, Utah, a developmental license, making it the first U.S. city to install the system for public safety use on standard channels. The FCC permitted use of digitally modulated scramblers for U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in 1978.
35. In 1978, Motorola introduced the Movar mobile two-way radio, a special adaptation of the Maxar product line for the Australian marketplace.
36. In 1980, Motorola and its automotive customers developed the world's first microprocessor-based engine control, the EEC III module. The module was designed to reduce fuel consumption and emissions.
37. In 1980, Symbol Technologies, Inc. (later Motorola) introduced a handheld laser barcode scanner, the Laserscan 1000 (also called LS100) model. The LS1000 scanner featured a helium-neon laser and an oscillating scan motor to read barcodes. It was installed at CBS Records in their Pitman, N.J., plant to check record album jackets as they were packed for shipping.
38. Motorola was a sponsor of the experimental 1980 Ahwatukee home in Arizona. Motorola technologies controlled information, security, entertainment, electrical, environmental and energy management systems for the home.
39. The world's first commercial handheld cellular phone, the Motorola DynaTAC phone, received approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Sept. 21, 1983. The 28-ounce (794-gram) phone became available to consumers in 1984.
40. In 1983, Motorola established Motorola Electronics Pte. Ltd. in Singapore to manufacture semiconductors and communications equipment.
41. In September 1983, Motorola introduced the VSP Vehicular Speaker Phone, the first hands-free cellular phone product for a car. The VSP technology was incorporated in Motorola’s DynaTAC mobile (installed in the car) cellular phone.
42. In 1984, Motorola introduced the MC68020, the world's first true 32-bit microprocessor. The MC68020 microprocessor contained 200,000 transistors on a three-eighths-inch square chip.
43. In 1986, the historic Voyager airplane, the first aircraft to make a nonstop, nonrefueled flight around the world, used a Motorola satellite radio.
44. Motorola invented the Six Sigma quality improvement process in 1986. Six Sigma provided a common worldwide language for measuring quality and became a global standard.
45. In 1986, Psion (later Motorola Solutions) launched its Organiser II pocket computer in the United Kingdom. Originally popular with consumers, by 1991 the Organiser II also served industrial markets. The device had its own built-in programming language, diary, calculator, contact storage and other useful features.
46. Motorola established a business office in New Delhi, India, in 1987. The company provided semiconductors and computer and wireless communications equipment to customers in India.
47. Motorola acquired Symbol Technologies, Inc. in 2007 to provide products and systems for enterprise mobility solutions, including rugged mobile computing, advanced data capture and radio frequency identification (RFID).
48. Motorola was honored by the president of the United States with the first annual Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in a ceremony at the White House on Nov. 14, 1988.
49. In 1990, Motorola’s Penang facility received the first Malaysian National Quality Management Award.
50. In 1990, Symbol Technologies (later Motorola) received FCC certification for its SpectrumOne spread spectrum wireless RF data network designed for barcode-based data collection applications.
51. Motorola demonstrated the world's first GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) working-prototype cellular system and phones in Hanover, Germany, in 1991.
52. Motorola's ASTRO two-way radio system, introduced in the United States in 1991, was the world’s first narrowband digital public safety radio system. The New Hampshire state police began extended field tests of ASTRO portables, mobiles, base stations, consoles, and a wide area system in December 1992.
53. Motorola Radius two-way radios became available to customers in Russia in 1991.
54. In 1991, Symbol Technologies (later Motorola) developed PDF417 two-dimensional symbology, the first 2D barcode that could be scanned by a laser scanner. The stacked symbology could encode up to 100 times more data than traditional bar codes, and was capable of storing as many as 2,725 data characters in a single code.
55. In 1991, the Asian paging market was booming as Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in Japan ordered its 1 millionth pager from Motorola. Motorola also produced Chinese and Thai language versions of its Advisor alphanumeric pager.
56. Robert W. Galvin, a long-time Motorola leader and son of the company's founder, received the 1991 National Medal of Technology from U.S. President George Bush "for advancement of the American electronics industry through continuous technological innovation, establishing Motorola as a world-class electronics manufacturer."
57. Motorola opened a sales office in Moscow in 1993.
58. In 1994, Motorola introduced iDEN digital radio, the world's first commercial digital radio system that combined voice dispatch, cellular, paging and data communications in a single radio network and handset.
59. In 1995, Motorola introduced the world's first two-way pager, the Tango two-way personal messaging pager. It allowed users to receive text messages and email, and reply with a standard response. It also could be connected to a computer to download long messages.
60. Motorola's Asia Pacific Paging Subscriber Division was the 1996 winner of the prestigious Singapore Quality Award.
61. Motorola began Alpha tests of a TETRA radio system in Europe in March 1996.
62. Symbol Technologies, Inc. (later Motorola) was awarded the 1999 National Medal of Technology, the United States’ highest honor for technological innovation, "for creating the global market for laser bar code scanning and for technical innovation and practical application of mobile computing and wireless local area network technologies."
63. In June 2000, Motorola and Cisco Systems, Inc. supplied the world’s first commercial GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) cellular network to BT Cellnet in the United Kingdom. The system used the world’s first GPRS cellular phone, the Motorola Timeport P7389i model.
64. In 2000, employees of Motorola's Broadband Communications Sector in Taiwan received the Taiwan Industrial Excellence Award for exceptional community service, quality and environmental initiatives, and increases in productivity and exports.
65. In 2000, Motorola tested the world's first 700 MHz wideband high-speed data system for public safety users, enabling advanced mission-critical solutions. Pinellas County, Fla., police, fire and EMS services deployed the trial system in 2001.
66. Symbol Technologies (later Motorola) introduced a switched wireless networking architecture in 2002. Controlling software was centralized in the switch instead of the access points in this type of system.
67. Motorola received the Interpol Outstanding Contribution Award in 2003. The award recognized Motorola for its services to the international law enforcement community.
68. In 2004, Motorola received the 2004 Award for Corporate Excellence from the U.S. Department of State for the company’s activities in Brazil. The award recognized multinational enterprises for their exemplary conduct, corporate responsibility and innovations in overseas operations. Motorola was the only company to have twice received the award.
69. Motorola, working with Science Applications International Corporation and Siemens, provided the secure two-way radio communications system for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. More than 22,000 public-safety officers and personnel made more than three million calls on the system.
70. Motorola was awarded the 2004 National Medal of Technology “for over 75 years of technological achievement and leadership in the development of innovative electronic solutions, which have enabled portable and mobile communications to become the standard across society.” Motorola received the award, the United States’ highest honor for technological innovation, in a White House ceremony in February 2006.
71. In 2007, the Motorola Solutions Foundation created its signature Innovation Generation grant program to provide funding for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education programs in North America.
72. Motorola introduced MOTOTRBO professional digital radio systems in May 2006. The system offered businesses integrated voice and data applications and increased system capacity. MOTOTRBO products began shipping in early 2007.
73. Motorola, the GSM Association and MTC Namibia deployed the world’s first wind and solar powered cell site in 2007 in Dordabis, Namibia. The system won industry awards for pioneering alternative power for cellular networks and allowing people living in remote areas to have telecommunications access.
74. Motorola demonstrated the world's first WiMAX 802.16e mobile handoffs in downtown Chicago on Sept. 26, 2007. Users experienced live Web browsing and video streaming sessions on wireless computers while traveling in the city.
75. In 2008 Motorola announced the first deployment of Inter RF Subsystem Interface (ISSI) gateways between live Project 25 public safety networks. The prototype installation in Arizona, demonstrated the ability to provide interoperability among existing communications systems. It was the culmination of months of multi-agency collaboration.
76. On Nov. 3, 2008, Motorola announced it had completed the world’s first over-the-air Long-Term Evolution (LTE) data session in the 700 MHz band. The test was achieved in Motorola labs and outdoors in Illinois, using prototype equipment. A week later, Motorola demonstrated the first public safety wireless broadband applications over a live 700 MHz LTE connection during the IACP trade show in San Diego. A vehicle equipped with 700 MHz OFDM being driven in the city of San Diego transmitted video and dispatch data back to the convention center.
77. In 2008, Motorola introduced the CA50 wireless scanner which was equipped with wireless LAN, barcode scanning and information retrieval, and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) communications. The device increased productivity and customer service in the retail, hospitality and healthcare industries.
78. In 2008, Motorola acquired a controlling interest in Vertex Standard Co., Ltd., in Japan, a global provider of two-way radio communication solutions. A joint venture with Tokogiken Co., Ltd., the acquisition increased Motorola’s product line for marine, avionics and amateur radio customers.
79. Motorola introduced the ES400 Enterprise Digital Assistant in 2010. Designed for mobile workers, the ES400 combined voice, data, scanning and GPS in a durable, light-weight device.
80. In January 2011, Motorola spun off its consumer business (mobile phones) as Motorola Mobility, which is now owned by Google. Motorola then changed its name to Motorola Solutions.
81. Motorola Solutions delivered its 1 millionth MOTOTRBO™ two-way radio in 2011. Using Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) digital technology, MOTOTRBO delivered twice the capacity of analog technology, longer battery life, integrated data applications and exceptional voice quality.
82. In 2011, the state of Mississippi awarded a $56 million contract to Motorola Solutions to create the United States' first statewide broadband LTE public safety network.
83. Motorola Solutions acquired Psion Plc. in 2012 to enhance its mobile computing portfolio with new ruggedized handheld products and vehicle-mount terminals.
84. In 2012, Motorola Solutions introduced the LEX 700 mission critical handheld, the world's first handheld public safety LTE device. The device combined rugged hardware and powerful software with the ability to connect with public safety LTE, cellular, IP and P25 networks.
85. In January 2013, Motorola Solutions announced the MP6000 multi-plane scanner / scale, an imaging-based bioptic solution to help customers quickly checkout at retail stores. A point-of-sale device, the MP6000 enabled cost-conscious retailers to scan 1D and 2D bar codes and engage with shoppers' smartphones.

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