Lenovo Completes Motorola Deal

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Lenovo Completes Motorola Deal

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 30, 2014 @02:09AM from the capital-is-mobile dept.

SmartAboutThings writes If somehow you missed the reports of Lenovo buying Motorola – which was also bought by Google for $12.5 billion back in 2011 – then you should know that the deal is now complete. Lenovo has announced today that Motorola is now a Lenovo company — which makes Lenovo not only the number one PC maker in the world but also the third-largest smartphone maker.

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a quote not reported yet. by nimbius · 2014-10-30 02:15 · Score: 1, Funny

"I'm proud to see this purchase has been completed. I've always advocated for Motorola to be purchased by Google, and now that theyve been purchased by Lenovo im sure they'll make even better products and services. Who knows, maybe 6 or 7 other companies can purchase them and I can finally retire in hawaii."

--Joes Electric Business Sign co.

--
Good people go to bed earlier.
1. Re:a quote not reported yet. by JMJimmy · 2014-10-30 03:27 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Nah, Lenovo will buy Blackberry next, merge the companies, release a bunch of "Motoberry", "Blackrola", "Lenberry", "Blackovo" phones, end up selling the merged company back to Google who randomly decides they want back into the handset market when their hairband fails. Google then strip out all identity left in the phones that made them stand out when they release the Google M1 and Google B1. They both under perform because Android is a hot mess at this point and Google is facing so much regulatory gridlock and competition from ISPs who've now become the social media barons and are degrading Google's services and giving priority to their own. Then some jackass decides he wants to set off a nuke using a drone which accidentally triggers NuclearResponse AI (Google beta) and the world ends up in a nuclear winter. Centuries later as mankind begins to spread again, the source code is discovered and found to have a bug in it caused by a backdoor that was added by the NSA so they would know who was operating the system. Mankind never could figure out why the NSA was trying to spy on an AI.
2. Re:a quote not reported yet. by cayenne8 · 2014-10-30 03:36 · Score: 1
  
  Just great.
  One of the crappiest product producing companies is now cornering the market in computers AND cellphones.
  
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  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
3. Re:a quote not reported yet. by alex67500 · 2014-10-30 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not sure what you're taking, but I'd like some!! ;-)
4. Re:a quote not reported yet. by theshowmecanuck · 2014-10-30 07:15 · Score: 1
  
  Phil Dick, is that you?
  
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  -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
5. Re:a quote not reported yet. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 07:39 · Score: 0
  
  Oh yes, now we finaly get to have stuff that survives actually using them.
  Dont think i ever owned a IBM/Lenovo that ever died on me. Can't say the same about dell or HP.
6. Re:a quote not reported yet. by JMJimmy · 2014-10-30 17:48 · Score: 1
  
  Delirium, brought to you buy 34 hours straight of pouring through 177 pages of legal documents with a fine tooth comb and the half dozen acts to which they apply, including the building and fire codes. Oh, and I am not a lawyer or contractor. Needless to say, crazy and despair had taken hold by hour 35.
7. Re:a quote not reported yet. by felipou · 2014-10-30 20:06 · Score: 1
  
  Surely a "Blackrola" phone would be a hit in Brazil.
For a moment I thougt this was important by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 02:18 · Score: 1

For a moment I thougt this was important, but then I remembered that everything relevant with Motorola is called Freescale these days.
1. Re:For a moment I thougt this was important by MachineShedFred · 2014-10-30 02:41 · Score: 1
  
  I think the only bit of Motorola that still exists as Motorola is the division that makes police radios and such.
  Motorola Semiconductor is now Freescale
  Motorola Solutions is now Zebra
  Motorola Mobility is now Google^H^H^H^H^H^H Lenovo
  Is there anything else left?
  
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  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
2. Re:For a moment I thougt this was important by quetwo · 2014-10-30 02:47 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Nope. The Motorola that made RF equipment (CATV, Radios, etc) was spun off by Google to a company known as Arris (the Arris Group).
3. Re:For a moment I thougt this was important by jratcliffe · 2014-10-30 03:09 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Not quite. There are two separate businesses. The business that made cable TV equipment was sold to Arris. The police radios business is still called Motorola Solutions, and it's a standalone company (ticker MSI).
Now what? by Jonifico · 2014-10-30 02:26 · Score: 1

The way Google made Motorola be born again was simply outstanding, I hope Lenovo learn enough from the previous owners in order to not only keep the rising status, but make the company what it really could be. Not a big fan of this deal, to be honest, but let's see!
1. Re:Now what? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 02:42 · Score: 0
  
  Born again as yet another money-losing division making mediocre devices?
  Motorola was doing that long before Google.
2. Re: Now what? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 03:02 · Score: 0
  
  Except that Moto G has been the best budget phone for a while now.
3. Re: Now what? by Archangel+Michael · 2014-10-30 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  OnePlus One is pretty good budget phone.
  
  --
  Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
4. Re: Now what? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 04:13 · Score: 0
  
  With multiple complaints and issues over the slightest knock. I heard terror stories of the 1+1.
5. Re: Now what? by Archangel+Michael · 2014-10-30 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  I've heard horror stories about almost all the phones. Having a OnePlus One, I am very happy with it. Not one issue, or complaint.
  On a side note, I was in a car with my Boss, and avid iPhone, iPad fan and watching him struggle with watching videos on an iPad was almost painful. Of course, he blamed everything but the iPad for the issue. Meanwhile, I was happily streaming away in the back seat on my OPO. I almost hurt for him. Almost, but not quite.
  
  --
  Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Wrong company name by Imagix · 2014-10-30 02:26 · Score: 1, Informative

Wow. Crap article and summary. Both claiming "Motorola", when it's "Motorola Mobility". Not the same thing. "Motorola" had multiple divisions. (The press release got it right....)
1. Re:Wrong company name by binarylarry · 2014-10-30 02:33 · Score: 1
  
  Surely Google is keeping the important IP rights?
  Otherwise Google's shareholders just took a $10 billion dollar bath...
  
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2. Re:Wrong company name by binarylarry · 2014-10-30 02:35 · Score: 1
  
  RTFA and it actually answered my questions! What is this reading voodoo?
  
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  Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
3. Re:Wrong company name by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 03:02 · Score: 0
  
  Motorola is a brand name now. When old Motorola (MOT) split in 2010, it became Motorola Solutions (MSI) and Motorola Mobility (MMI) with the Motorola name being owned by Motorola Mobility and perpetually licensed back to Motorola Solutions.
4. Re:Wrong company name by timeOday · 2014-10-30 03:44 · Score: 1
  
  Sort of. Without knowing the unknowable "true" value of the patents (how many, which ones, how much they generate in royalties, how important they might be to google's future plans...), it could just as well be face-saving spin by google management to head off the wrath of shareholders. In other words, even assuming the management team is trying to do whatever is best for the company, they also have a strong incentive to give the impression they are doing a good job.
5. Re:Wrong company name by misosoup7 · 2014-10-30 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  The importance of the patents it stave away patent trolls and Apple law suits. Thereby saving billions in damage fees (a la Apple v Samsung).
6. Re:Wrong company name by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 04:07 · Score: 0
  
  it could just as well be face-saving spin by google management to head off the wrath of shareholders
  Shareholder wrath is probably unpleasant for Google's leadership in the abstract, but it has no binding power. Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt outvote the rest of the shareholders. Upset shareholders dumping stock and lowering the stock price would bother lots of Google employees, though it wouldn't impact the founders in any noticeable way.
7. Re:Wrong company name by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 04:08 · Score: 0
  
  It stated that they were going to be peddling the company and keeping the IP rights to themselves back when they started the sell-off process. When I was there in Libertyville (as a FAE for one of their suppliers...and there the day they announced that this was happening...) many of their engineers surmised that this was going to be what happened, ultimately. The move was done for two reasons as best as I can tell.
  1) To squelch MM from suing all of the Android partners over BS since they'd taken to litigating.
  2) To gain a patent club against several hostile players, including Microsoft and Apple. They hold about half of the key 4G patents right now. Want to play? You need to be nice to Qualcomm and Google now.
8. Re:Wrong company name by timeOday · 2014-10-30 05:14 · Score: 1
  
  The question isn't whether the patents have any value, because they do. I am saying that from the outside, sitting here on slashdot and on the basis of the article, there's really no way we could argue whether those patents are actually worth $1M, $1B, or $10B.
Motorola Mobility by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 02:29 · Score: 0

Motorola Mobility, not Motorola Solutions
1. Re:Motorola Mobility by MachineShedFred · 2014-10-30 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, someone else bought Motorola Solutions: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/20...
  
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  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
2. Re:Motorola Mobility by jratcliffe · 2014-10-30 03:10 · Score: 2
  
  Actually, that's just the enterprise business of Motorola Solutions. Motorola Solutions continues to run the public safety business (i.e. police radios).
3. Re:Motorola Mobility by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 04:10 · Score: 0
  
  EF Johnson's got better gear in that space...or at least they used to.
4. Re:Motorola Mobility by Anonymous Coward · 2014-11-09 03:44 · Score: 0
  
  From now onwards, I really started loving Motorola!
  Android Latest Updates
  Compare Smartphones Specifications
  Root Android Smartphone
  Hotmail Login Signup
And I shall call him Motolenovorola! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 02:49 · Score: 0

Or Mini Me.
Whichever works!
Goodbye Moto by theodp · 2014-10-30 02:51 · Score: 1

Circa-2002 Motorola "Hello Moto" commercial for the new V60. Wanna trade your iPhone 6 Plus for one?
1. Re:Goodbye Moto by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 02:56 · Score: 0
  
  Nice. I had one of those, one of the best phones I ever owned. Remember when it was cooler for your cellphone to be small than so big it can't fit in your pocket?
2. Re:Goodbye Moto by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 03:21 · Score: 0
  
  Remember when it was cooler for your cellphone to be small than so big it can't fit in your pocket?
  And remember when call quality and battery life were also important features?
3. Re:Goodbye Moto by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 05:21 · Score: 0
  
  You can still get phones that prioritize such features.
bugware by Frederic54 · 2014-10-30 02:58 · Score: 1

So now Motorola phones will have spyware and bugware like the Huawei ones?

--
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
1. Re:bugware by tlhIngan · 2014-10-30 03:42 · Score: 1
  
  So now Motorola phones will have spyware and bugware like the Huawei ones?
  Don't forget Xiaomi as well. Their mi5 software is actually given away because Xiaomi wants to become a cloud company and not a hardware company (i.e., they don't want to follow Apple's footsteps in making nice phones, but Google's footsteps by making nice phones that collect data).
  The mi5 software is part of that and is why they give it away - to help collect data for the cloud.
2. Re:bugware by timeOday · 2014-10-30 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  I'm trying to imagine how Huawei could be worse than any of the others? All smartphones are saturated with spyware. I was setting up my wife's new Galaxy S3 last night, which is Android, and the number of times you have to click, "go ahead and do whatever you want with my data" to get it working in a useful manner is mind-numbing.
3. Re:bugware by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 04:53 · Score: 0
  
  As far as I am aware they have dit not mention discontinuing shipping spyware after the deal.
4. Re:bugware by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 14:24 · Score: 0
  
  So now Motorola phones will have spyware and bugware like the Huawei ones?
  Well, if it replaces (rather than supplants) the NSA and carrier spyware/bloatware, it might actually be an improvement.
Even upside-down Motorola by tepples · 2014-10-30 03:03 · Score: 1

Even Williams Electronics, an arcade game maker that used an upside-down Motorola logo, spun off its video game business to Midway, which is now part of Time Warner.
1. Re:Even upside-down Motorola by tlhIngan · 2014-10-30 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  Even Williams Electronics, an arcade game maker that used an upside-down Motorola logo, spun off its video game business to Midway, which is now part of Time Warner.
  Actually, when it was spun off, it was Williams-Bally-Midway. In the 80s, Williams experimented with arcade games, and then acquired Midway to be their arcade division. (WIlliams also acquired Bally for pinball). Depending on the mood, the game would either be released under Williams or Midway (likewise for pinballs under Williams or Bally). Eventually more and more of it just went towards Midway until it was basically doing all the arcade games and got spun off later.
  Williams-Bally today makes gaming devices (slot machines), having decided to shut down their pinball division instead of either suspending or spinning it off.
2. Re:Even upside-down Motorola by CronoCloud · 2014-10-30 05:10 · Score: 2
  
  Williams experimented with arcade games
  If you can call Defender and Stargate, experiments. That's more like an NFL player retiring, starting up a golf career and winning the PGA tour his first year of playing golf.
  Midway eventually got the rights to Atari's arcade titles....Gauntlet Legends/Dark Legacy was one of those Blew my mind to hear Sumner say "Midway Games" instead of seeing the proper Atari logo.
  
  having decided to shut down their pinball division instead of either suspending or spinning it off.
  That's sad. Does Stern still make pinball? (Googles) YES, yes they do!
  You know.. Bally, Midway, Williams and Stern....were all based in Chicago.
It already had that by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 03:29 · Score: 0

It's called Google location, Google Now...
Google buys Moto for 12.5 bil by Crashmarik · 2014-10-30 03:37 · Score: 1

*****
*****
*****
*****
Sells it for 2.91 bil
Profit ?
1. Re:Google buys Moto for 12.5 bil by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 04:03 · Score: 1
  
  Profit? All but 2000 patents so that google could adequately protect other Android vendors from lawsuits. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility
2. Re:Google buys Moto for 12.5 bil by misosoup7 · 2014-10-30 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  They kept the IP and some human capital. They just sold the brand to Lenovo.
3. Re:Google buys Moto for 12.5 bil by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 05:45 · Score: 0
  
  they could still make phones and devices. Maybe build nexus devices in house?
Finally Happened by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 04:49 · Score: 0

So back in the early 80's when it seemed the Japanese were taking over the tech world we (some Moto folk) we thought Motorola would get bought out buy them
and be renamed (in bad stereotyping very un PC) Motorora. So 30 years later an Asian company buys out at least part of the carcass maybe they'll call it
Lenovorola in the future. For all you youngsters who grew up in the digital age, Motorola's name came from a cross between Motor (for vehicles) and Victrola (original phonograph) as they created one of the first (maybe the first) car radio, a rather large AM radio thing with Vacuum tubes.
1. Re:Finally Happened by CronoCloud · 2014-10-30 05:20 · Score: 1
  
  The Japanese DID buy out parts of Motorola. My parents both worked at a Motorola TV plant when Moto sold their TV business to Matsushita.
  Motorola screwed their workers over, they said their workers could stay with Moto if they wanted, but they would have to apply for jobs at a facility staying Moto, were not guaranteed such jobs, and that Moto would refuse applications from workers unless they relocated (they considered blue collar commuters unreliable workers)....and that there was no relocation assistance available.
2. Re:Finally Happened by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 06:23 · Score: 0
  
  Yes sorry forgot about the TV deal, but then again the word was Motorola built the Quasar Tv's to be easily repaired (works in the drawer, essentially a back plane with cards, that could be pulled out from the front) but Matsushita (Panasonic) built the TVs to not break (not sure if this was true). So also another joke was the Cafeteria sold Quasar burgers, an hour later your works were in your drawers (ok I'll stop the bad retro jokes).
On the same page by genka · 2014-10-30 05:10 · Score: 1

On the left side I read " Lenovo not only the number one PC maker in the world but also the third-largest smartphone maker." On the right side under "The Register": "Watch out, Samsung and Apple: Xiaomi's No 3 in smartphones now ", On the right side under "Beta News": "Xiaomi is the third-largest smartphone maker"
so google made a small fortune... by 4wdloop · 2014-10-30 06:41 · Score: 1

...starting with a big one...to gain patents ?
(costly but no way around them?)

--
4wdloop
Corrected headline: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 11:07 · Score: 0

"Communist Chinese army now number one PC maker and third-largest smartphone maker in the world"
subtitle: "nobody with an ounce of common sense should buy and use these products"
Remember: this is a Chinese "company", but China is a totalitarian communist country. This company is only "free" to the extent that its overloards choose to let it pretend to be. During the cold war, such transfers were wisely blocked by western nations who depended on technical superiority to maintain their freedoms but in the era of big investment bankers and stock portfolios managers pulling the puppet strings for all western politicians, western governments have abandoned control of their borders and abandoned control of high-tech transfers to nations that wish to destroy them. It looks like marx was right about the west selling the rope that would be used in its own hanging...
1. Re:Corrected headline: by PaddyM · 2014-10-30 12:43 · Score: 1
  
  It's a good thing no other computers or cell phones are made in totalitarian communist countries! I knew that Lemote Yeelong was a trojan horse, so I telnet to SELinux on my PDP-11 and use a dumb terminal for all my American computer needs. And I never compile anything, cause Ken Thompson and whatever.
Chinese Spyware? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 13:46 · Score: 0

All this means is the next batch of Moto phones pre-installed spyware will report to both Beijing AND Google.
Heisenberg by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-30 19:06 · Score: 0

I hope that with this deal we will get more awesome smartphones and tablets from Motorola. I love their Moto G smartphone so the expectations are high from Lenovo to give us another masterpiece. SlushFusion | TheAppsAdvisor