By Wailin Wong
| Motorola said Monday it is exploring potential locations for the
headquarters of its mobile phone and cable set-top box business, which
is slated to be split  off from the rest of the company next year.

“If Mobile Devices and Home make the decision to relocate its
headquarters, this would affect less than 200 people and would not occur
in 2010,” the company said in a statement.

Motorola did not elaborate on where it’s looking. The company emphasized that it employs more than 10,000 in the Chicago area and “will continue to maintain a meaningful presence” in Illinois regardless of a shift in headquarters. Motorola’s mobile devices division is headquartered in Libertyville and its home business has most of its operations in Horsham, Pennsylvania.

Crain’s Chicago Business reported Monday that Motorola was looking at a number of locations such as downtown Chicago, Dallas and Silicon Valley. The possibility of moving to California has been looming since February, when co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha said he was interested in pursuing the Golden State’s deep pool of high-tech talent.

Jha, who was San Diego-based Qualcomm’s chief operating officer before arriving at Motorola to turn around the handset business, still commutes to the Chicago area from San Diego. He told the San Diego Union-Tribune in an interview published Sunday that the set-top box business also has “very deep roots” in the California city.

“Is San Diego a possibility? When we get engaged with it, we’ll definitely consider San Diego,” Jha told the newspaper. “My family, you know, still lives there. I have a special place for San Diego in (my) heart.”