Google acquires Motorola Mobility: the full story – The Verge

Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside headed to Dropbox

2014-02-12T22:07:52-05:00

Last month Google announced that it was selling off Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, and the inevitable executive shakeup is coming to pass. According to The Wall Street Journal Dennis Woodside, who became Motorola Mobility's CEO when Mountain View bought the company, is headed to Dropbox as the company's first chief operating officer.

Woodside had actually been an executive at Google for years before taking the Motorola job, and made such an impression in Silicon Valley that Apple's Tim Cook actually tried to hire him away from the company at one point. However, despite overseeing phones like the Moto X, Woodside was unable to jumpstart Motoro …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google sells Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion

2014-01-29T16:09:29-05:00

Motorola logo

Google is selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, giving the Chinese smartphone manufacturer a major presence in the US market. Lenovo will buy Motorola for $2.91 billion in a mixture of cash and stock. Google will retain ownership of the vast majority of Motorola's patents, while 2,000 patents and a license on the remaining patents will go to Lenovo. At the deal's closing, Lenovo will pay Google $660 million in cash and $750 million in stock, while the remaining $1.5 billion will be paid out over three years.

Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing said that although his company doesn't have "an effective plan yet," it has confidence that it can turn the cu …

Read the full story at The Verge.

How long will Google keep burning money on Motorola?

2013-10-21T09:00:39-04:00

Moto X cropped (1024px)

Over the last eight months, losses at Google's Motorola Mobility have accelerated despite three rounds of layoffs that slashed around 6,000 workers. The division is now on pace to bleed $1 billion a year out of the search giant's bank account. And yet Google's stock topped a record high $1,000 a share today as investors showed renewed confidence in the company's future. The questions raised back in April seem more pertinent than ever: why exactly did Google buy Motorola? We've got another quarter of data and a new device to look at, but the answer still isn't pretty.

"I'm still scratching my head about why they did it."

Does a money pit like …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Motorola building a ‘world-class wearables design group,’ according to job posting

2013-07-20T01:29:36-04:00

via cdn1.sbnation.com

We knew Motorola was interested in crazy wearable technology - like vitamin authentication and electronic tattoos - but now it appears the Google-owned company is preparing to actually design and build computers you can attach to yourself. In a job posting for a "Senior Director of Industrial Design," the company lays out a goal: the "ideal candidate" will help create "a new world-class wearables design group within Motorola," and manage day-to-day operations of the group.

"architect a design plan for leadership in the area of wearable technologies"

"The wearables design team will lead the establishment of our brand in the massive competitive …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Moto X and the Droids of the future: what we know so far

2013-07-10T09:15:05-04:00

motorola leak tinhte

The hopes of a reinvigorated Motorola are riding on a single much-rumored phone called the Moto X. CEO Dennis Woodside confirmed that the Moto X existed and provided the first official details on the phone at D11 in May, but the company has yet to fully reveal the device. Nevertheless, a series of leaks have filled in the picture quite a bit. We know that the Moto X will be a mid-range device set for a release this summer, and it's also expected that Motorola's working on a series of Droid-branded phones destined for Verizon Wireless. Considering the number of leaks surrounding these devices, we've compiled everything we know about them here …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Does anyone know why Google bought Motorola?

2013-04-26T16:33:23-04:00

Motorola Defy Plus Review 1020

Why did Google spend $12.5 billion to purchase Motorola Mobility? It's been nearly two years since the deal was announced and close to a full year since it closed, and the questions keep piling up while the answers keep getting worse.

The biggest problem is that Motorola's patent portfolio doesn't appear to be worth anything close to what either company assumed: the judge in the Microsoft v. Motorola patent case ruled yesterday that Redmond owes a paltry $1.7 million in annual royalties for using Motorola's standards-related Wi-Fi and video-encoding patents in every Xbox 360 and Windows 7 PC sold, rather than the $4 billion Motorola had ori …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Judge rules that Motorola’s patents aren’t worth the $4 billion a year it demanded from Microsoft

2013-04-25T22:37:20-04:00

Motorola Droid RAXR maxx logo (1020)

A judge presiding over a legal battle between Microsoft and Google-owned Motorola issued a ruling today that valued elements of Motorola's patent portfolio far below what the company felt they were worth - by a difference of over $3.9 billion a year.

The two companies have been locked in a legal battle over Microsoft's use of several Motorola patents that are part of the 802.11 Wi-Fi and H.264 video standards. As such, they're considered standards-essential patents, and must be licensed to other parties at a reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) rate. According to Redmond's attorneys, Motorola violated that pact by asking far too much to …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google deal to sell Motorola set-top box division to Arris receives final regulatory approval

2013-04-12T12:05:37-04:00

motorola cable box

Google's deal to sell off the Motorola Home cable box unit to the Arris Group has passed its final regulatory hurdle. The Department of Justice has given the acquisition its approval, and Arris expects the transaction will now close around April 17th. Last December, Google finally found a suitor for the cable box division that was included with its purchase of Motorola Mobility. The news came after months of rumors that the company was looking to sell off the set-top box unit and focus solely on the smartphone and cellphone business. The deal with Arris was for $2.05 billion in cash and $300 million in stock, and it includes a provision to l …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Mystery Motorola phone leak could point to new Google influence

2013-03-13T01:58:39-04:00

motorola leak tinhte

Images and video of an unidentified Motorola handset have appeared on Tinh tế, and it looks quite unlike any of the recent Kevlar-coated phones from the Google-owned manufacturer. While there have been rumors that a flagship "X Phone" will come sometime this year, it doesn't look like this device is it - as per Google's comments about upcoming Motorola devices, the 720p AMOLED display is unlikely to make anyone say "wow" like we'd hope from a true collaboration.

Unlikely to make anyone say "wow"

Still, if this is a real unit or prototype from Motorola, it does show that the company is working on new products that depart from its traditional …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google’s Motorola to lay off a further 10 percent of its workforce

2013-03-08T00:22:16-05:00

Motorola logo droid 4 stock 1024

Following its acquisition by Google, Motorola Mobility announced sweeping layoffs last October with about 4,000 people - 20 percent of all employees - losing their jobs. It seems the restructuring didn't go far enough, however, as the Wall Street Journal reports that the unit will make a further cut of around 1,200 people, or over a tenth of the workforce, in the US, China, and India. A Motorola spokesperson said:

"These cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer. It's obviously very hard for the employees concerned, and we are committed to helping them through this difficult transition."

According to a company-wide …

Read the full story at The Verge.