Motorola finally finds its phone guy

Motorola shareholders are liking the new guy picked for the soon-to-be-spun-off handset division. Shares of the company rose 12% today on news of Sanjay Jha's appointment.

Jha is going to share CEO duties with current CEO Greg Brown until the spinoff, which is planned for the third quarter of 2009. He's definitely got the technical know-how for the job: he's been the chief operating officer of Qualcomm and also president of the division that made chips for cell phones. 

So we know he's a tech whiz. But does he have the style savvy for the job? It's going to take all of Jha's skills to pull Motorola's handset division out of the toilet and place it on par with the likes of Apple, Research in Motion and other phone makers. The company wants another hit like the Razr, but the iPhone has turned the industry on its head since then. It's a different world.

"I don't know that I have a magic plan today," Jha told Reuters. He said he needs 90 days to figure things out.

Jha was so valuable to Qualcomm that the company needs three execs to replace him. Motorola's going to pay him a $1.2 million base salary and target bonuses at about $2.4 million. He's also getting a truckload of stock. Not a bad payload for a very difficult job.

Analysts had good things to say about him. "We are hard-pressed to imagine a better candidate than Dr. Jha," said Citigroup's Jim Suva. Goldman Sachs called it "a big win."

So the honeymoon's in full swing. 

Related reading: 

Like torture? Motorola has a job for you

Motorola: Could it get any worse?

Spinoff could put Motorla in poorhouse

Motorola's next hit will have to create itself

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