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Googles $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility is now complete, the search giant and now hardware maker detailed in a May 22 blog post. And while Google has said it will run Motorola as a separate business, that doesnt mean all will remain as-is.
On the same day that the acquisition became official, Google announced that Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha, who revived Motorolas mobile device business and has been a vocal advocate for the Android platform, stepped down from the top position. Google has appointed Dennis Woodside, a longtime Google employee, as the new CEO of Motorola Mobility.
Google CEO Larry Page, in a blog post, said Woodside will ensure a smooth transition for the company. He added that Woodside has helped build business for Google across the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia, and in less than three years as president of the Americas, helped increase Googles revenue from $10.8 billion to $17.5 billion.
As an Ironman triathlete, hes got plenty of energy for the journey aheadand hes already off to a great start with some very strong new hires for the Motorola team, wrote Page.
These new leaders, immediately joining the Motorola executive team, include Regina Dugan, the former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); Mark Randall, formerly of Amazon and Nokia; Vanessa Wittman, who was chief financial officer of Marsh & McLennan; Scott Sullivan, former head of HR at Visa and Nvidia; and Gary Briggs, Googles former vice president of consumer marketing.
Several members of the Motorola Mobility staffIqbal Arshad, Marshall Brown, Fei Liu, Dan Moloney, Scott Offer, Mark Shockley, Mahesh Veerina and Jim Wickswill retain their positions.
Page went on to call Motorola a great American tech company, with a track record of over 80 years of innovation. Referencing Motorolas StarTAC, the industrys first cell phone, which at the time seemed tiny, Page added, Its a great time to be in the mobile business, and Im confident that the team at Motorola will be creating the next generation of mobile devices that will improve lives for years to come.
Such cheerleading aside, Google has promised to walk a careful line and not show favoritism to Motorola over the other handset makers currently supporting its Android mobile platform.
In the past, Google has worked with device makers on its own branded Nexus devices. Going forward, however, it plans to work on Nexus devices with at least five manufacturers at once, The Wall Street Journal reported May 15. While the effort could certainly help to further build Android market shareduring the first quarter, Android was on 56 percent of the smartphones that shipped worldwide, according to Gartnerthe move is likely to also help assuage industry fears about favoritism toward Motorola.
Woodside, in the press release, offered his first comments as CEO of Motorola.
Motorola literally invented the entire mobile industry with the first-ever commercial cell phone in 1983. Thirty years later, mobile devices are at the center of the computing revolution. Our aim, he continued, “is simple: to focus Motorola Mobilitys remarkable talent on fewer, bigger bets, and create wonderful devices that are used by people around the world.