For mobile phone enthusiasts, the name Motorola usually brings back the images of some of the most stylish flip phones ever made. However, the company surely has much more to be proud about. With many iconic gadgets to its name, Motorola has been at the forefront of technological inventions and innovations for well over half a century now. In this article, we take a look at the company's history as well as some important milestones it achieved on its journey to where it is today. The Beginning: battery eliminators and car radios It all began in the decade of 1920 when Paul Galvin from Illinois went to Chicago in search of work. After working for a local storage-battery company there and a couple of failed attempts to start his own businesses, he along with is brother Joe Galvin established Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in the year 1928. The company, which had $565 in working capital and just five employees, focused on making battery eliminators - a device that enabled battery-powered radios to work with household electricity instead. Like almost all the other companies, Galvin Manufacturing was also severely affected by the Great Depression that hit the USA in 1929. In an effort to pull the company out of red, Galvin began experimenting with the auto mobile-radio market, asking his employees to design an inexpensive car radio that could be installed in vehicles of any make. The following year, the company was able to produce a working model, which carried the brand name Motorola. The name was derived from the words "motorcar" and "victrola." In 1930s, Galvin Manufacturing came up with devices like police radio (a car radio that received only police broadcasts) and home radio with push-button tuning features - a first of its kind. Towards the end of the decade, the company started researching on television. However, the research work was halted for a couple of years in favor of war-related projects that produced products like the Handie-Talkie SCR536 portable two-way radio, as well as the Walkie-Talkie, both of which were by used the U.S. Army Signal Corps in WWII. R&D Work on television resumed in the year 1945, and the company unveiled its first TV in the year 1947. Dubbed Golden View, the $179 TV became hugely popular, with the company selling over 100,000 sets within a year of its launch, and becoming the number four TV manufacturer in the US. The year 1947 turned out to be an important year in the company's history as it also saw Galvin's son Robert joining the company, as well as the company being renamed Motorola, Inc. Towards the end of the decade, in an attempt to expand its automotive business, Motorola also tried developing car heaters, but the project failed after its engineers couldn't solve some technical issues like those related to proper exhaustion of the gasoline fumes. Home Entertainment Like in the case of Sony, the invention of transistor created a new business opportunity for Motorola, which quickly formed a semiconductor development group that churned out products like three-amp power transistors. It also started supplying transistors to other companies, including some of its competitors. The 1950s was also the decade when the demand for home entertainment equipment like televisions took off in the US. Citing opportunity in home entertainment market, Motorola focused on creating stereo phonographs, the first of which were introduced in the year 1958. The step proved to be successful with sales surpassing the prior year's sales of all phonographs and hi-fi equipment. This was followed by development of units that were a combination of stereos, radios and television sets. These products turned out to be so popular that the brand name 'Motorola' became synonymous with 'entertainment in the air.' 1958 was also the year when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) came into existence, and Motorola became one of the agency's first suppliers, providing space communication equipment like transponders that were used in Mariner II, which launched in 1962 to explore the planet Venus. The famous Apollo 11 mission saw hundreds of Motorola engineers designing, testing, and producing the space flight's sophisticated electronics. After becoming the first human to land on moon, Neil Armstrong said his first words -...
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