In September 2005, a nonequity strategic alliance was announced that involved three companies—Motorola (MOT), Apple (APPL), and Cingular. The purpose of this alliance was to sell (Cingular’s role) a unique mobile phone (made by Motorola) that is capable of receiving downloads from Apple’s iTunes Web site. The mobile phone in question is called the ROKR. A fascinating aspect of this alliance is that Cingular itself is the product of a joint venture between SBC Communications (SBC) and BellSouth (BLS). To complete this exercise, you will be asked to carefully examine this alliance to determine the purposes it serves for each firm.

As individuals within your three-person groups, you will be assigned one of the three partners to this alliance—either Motorola, Apple, or Cingular. Based on each person’s understanding of the terms of the alliance, your task is to describe the motivations or reasons your assigned firm chose to participate in this nonequity strategic alliance.You should be able to locate a number of discussions offered by business writers describing reasons each firm decided to enter into a three-way cooperative strategy.
Because the business writers will have different perspectives, anticipate that different perspectives will be offered regarding each of the three firms.When reading the writers’ commentaries, carefully assess the appropriateness of their views given what you learned by completing the first part of this exercise. Once you have identified what you believe are the actual reasons your firm decided to participate in this particular alliance, use the material on attributes of a successful alliance from Chapter 9 to evaluate the degree to which you think this alliance will be successful. Be prepared to discuss your work with your group members.