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Google Sells Motorola Mobility To Lenovo For $2.91 Billion
_0x783czar writes "Google today announced that they will be selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for the sum of $2.91 billion USD. Google says the move should allow the company to receive the attention and focus it deserves in order to thrive. From the announcement: '[T]he smartphone market is super competitive, and to thrive it helps to be all-in when it comes to making mobile devices. It's why we believe that Motorola will be better served by Lenovo — which has a rapidly growing smartphone business and is the largest (and fastest-growing) PC manufacturer in the world. This move will enable Google to devote our energy to driving innovation across the Android ecosystem, for the benefit of smartphone users everywhere.' Google was quick to add that this does not signal a move away from their other hardware projects. Additionally Google will 'retain the vast majority of Motorola's patents,' which they hope to continue using to stabilize the Android ecosystem. The deal has yet to be approved by either the U.S. or China."
They didn't "rent" anything -- they paid $10 billion for Motorola's patents. The rest wasn't worth much to them.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Yes, spot on.
17,000 patents, plus another 7,500 pending. Also, the patents were higher quality patents, so it just was not the numbers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Nope.
Motorola Solutions is still based in the Illinois, making top-tier wireless communications gear for commercial and public safety sectors.
All that has been sold to China is what used to be the Crappy Consumer Products/Race to the Bottom division of Motorola:
Kid-proof tablet..
Maybe you missed the part about them keeping the patents. This is part of their strategic goals of supporting Android without having to bother with managing a phone company.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
That's a pretty big shopping spree Lenovo has been on. I sure hope it pays off for them -- I like their hardware, despite all the naysayers out there, I've never had problems with their stuff yet.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Not at all, Motorola seems to be making better phones now, and Google has the parents. I assume the purchase was very hedging, in case android as an ecosystem didn't take off, they could try to make them alone. The need to hedge is over, Google gets some money, and a company that has proven it's ability to manage american brands is in the mix.
Google can now release moto based nexus items (if they dream moto to be good for it), without threatening the ecosystem.
The hedge on android probably was worth it to them.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
This was always the point of the purchase. Google needed those patents to defend themselves. They bought the company to get the patents, and now that they've decided which ones matter, they are passing along the rest of the company to someone who cares. They got what they wanted, paid the price they felt was worth it, and are now happily sitting with patents that they can use to counter attacks by other patent holders in the smart phone market. I believe there was intense speculation about this being the motive when we first discussed this purchase on Slashdot.
Not really. They sold various other parts in the past for cash, and got tax writeoffs. Forbes estimates it only really cost them 1.5 billion in cash. With this deal they made money, and likely kept the patents.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ti...
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
They didn't "rent" anything -- they paid $10 billion for Motorola's patents. The rest wasn't worth much to them.
According to this Google+ post, it wasn't that bad. Motorola came to Google with $5.6B in cash and deferred tax assets, plus Google recovered some more of their money by selling the set-top box business ($2.35) and some factories ($75M), and finally the sale price to Lenovo ($2.91B).
So the net cost was about $1.56B. For that Google got most of the Motorola patents and Motorola's advanced products group. Good deal? Bad deal? You decide.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Not at all, Motorola seems to be making better phones now
WAY better phones. In fact, except for problems like no SD card slots or removable batteries, I think they're making arguably the best phones in the market. Moto X is no Optimus G2 in terms of speed, but it's plenty fast, its battery lasts the whole day and it has brought something new to the table: voice commands. I think it's pretty useless, but at least it's something new. Notifications that take advantage of the AMOLED display were also cool. Moto G is simply the best value for money right now, it's putting every other phone maker to shame. Both can take a fall and are already running KitKat. If you remember Motorola had the Razr HD going against Samsung's Galaxy S3, you can recognize they improved Motorola's game immensely. Maybe Lenovo will carry the momentum, but I fear not. It's a shame, because I really liked where Motorola was going.