Amid the global economic downturn, mobile phone maker Motorola will lay off 3,000 employees and push back its planned spin off of its mobile devices unit, as it seeks to utilize 2009 in development of smart phones, said Sanjay Jha, chief executive of the company’s mobile devices business.

Motorola will make smartphones to compete with the various BlackBerry models made by Research in Motion and the iPhone by Apple, said Jha.

Further he added that the company will devise mobile phones that use one of only two operating systems- the new Android by Google and Windows Mobile by Microsoft.

Motorola hopes to introduce an Android-supported smartphone in time for the Christmas buying season in 2009. It also plans to announce other smartphones using Windows Mobile next fall.

Furthermore, the decision to split its mobile phone business from the rest of its operations in 2009 was delayed as a part of the wrecking economy.