Motorola Inc. might have meant to silence critics of its operations by agreeing to consider spinning off or selling its wireless handset unit. But the decision sets the communications equipment maker on a path that could eventually result in the break-up of the entire company.

After being anointed successor to CEO Edward Zander late last year, Greg Brown, who formerly took over in January, signaled the company would remain a single entity despite growing entreaties from analysts and billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

Brown's reversal is only now aligned with Icahn's push for the company to be broken into four separate businesses, and follows another slide in Motorola's share of the handset business in the fourth quarter.

The decline, which the company and analysts see continuing in the ongoing quarter, forcing Motorola to consider exploring "the structural and strategic realignment of its businesses to better equip its Mobile Devices business to recapture global market leadership and to enhance shareholder value."

In a statement, Brown added: "We are exploring ways in which our Mobile Devices Business can accelerate its recovery and retain and attract talent while enabling our shareholders to realize the value of this great franchise."

The company said it would not discuss the topic again until its board of directors makes a final decision.

Which way forward?

The investment community is going to have its hands full pondering what the future holds for Motorola. Indications are that shareholders, analysts and other pundits won't limit their considerations to the mobile devices unit.

Each of Motorola's four business units are expected to come under intense scrutiny over the next few months by potential investors, including venture capitalists and other corporate buyers interested in beefing up their businesses by capturing an established industry player. Also, current rivals are bound to seize the opportunity to further cut into the company's dwindling market share and poach critical engineering and other technical employees, according to analysts.

"We caution that a delay could eat substantially into the value of the handset business as competitors are likely to take advantage of the announcement to seize both market share and valuable engineering assets," Matthew Hoffman, an analyst at SG Cowen Securities Inc., said in a report.