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Lenovo: Motorola Acquisition 'Did Not Meet Expectations' (theverge.com)
Lenovo acquired Motorola from Google in 2014. Since then, the Chinese technology conglomerate has been trying to merge Motorola's offering into its large portfolio. But things aren't going as planned. Lenovo on Thursday announced that the "integration efforts did not meet expectations". The company, however, insists that it has drawn many lessons from the experience since the close of the Motorola acquisition, and it is making changes to them quickly.
It's not the best time in the market if you're an Android smartphone maker. There's an increasingly growing competition especially from companies such as Xiaomi, Meizu, Micromax, Yu and others that are making premium smartphones with a razor-thin margin. Any unique feature a smartphone maker introduces is seen replicated in others' offerings within weeks.
It's not the best time in the market if you're an Android smartphone maker. There's an increasingly growing competition especially from companies such as Xiaomi, Meizu, Micromax, Yu and others that are making premium smartphones with a razor-thin margin. Any unique feature a smartphone maker introduces is seen replicated in others' offerings within weeks.
My first "new-age" smartphone (discounting those horrid old 3G Windows Mobile phones with a stylus in the mid-2000s) was a Motorola Droid 2. For a number of years, Motorola was well-known and respected among smartphone users for:
- Shipping fairly high-end kit, though perhaps not always the latest and greatest
- Very good power efficiency (for Android)
- A lack of the excessive amount of crapware you get on most phones; only the bare minimum the carrier forces on you
- A close-to-vanilla Android experience
- Great build quality and premium feel
- Reasonable prices - they were never the most expensive in the marketplace
- Generous battery capacity -- which, when combined with the power efficiency of their tuned SoCs, led to awesome battery life without any external batteries or extended batteries
- One of the less-hyped smartphone manufacturers (compared to Apple and Samsung) that still churned out well-engineered products and listened to their customers
Unfortunately these virtues seem to have fallen by the wayside to an extent, and the dominance of Samsung, (LG?), and Apple has pushed them out of the market it seems.
The only effect Lenovo could possibly have on them is to force them to cheapen their build. Everything Lenovo touches turns to cheap plastic.
I have some friends who work at Motorola. My cousin's hubby is an engineer there. He's worked his ass off on phones, back and forth to factories in china all the time. All for naught.
An interesting read: Lenovo/Motorola repeating the mistakes of HP/Palm
Lenovo spokesperson: This certainly didnt meet our expectations...we should learn and grow from the experience.
Microsoft spokesperson: The Windows phone is, and will always be, a perfect success. our acquisition from Nokia was, and always will be, a good decision. less than 1% market share is precisely the finest definition of this success. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to shovel a few more coal-like employees into the furnace of unemployment, that our steam engine of failure might surge ever mightier into oblivion in its quest for bankruptcy.
Good people go to bed earlier.
We've completed sucking all the IP out of Motorola and are ready to ditch it by one means or another.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
My default expectation in any high profile acquisition is that the target company's stockholders will do well, the CEO of the acquiring company will make a bundle, and the stockholders of the acquiring company will take a bath.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Pretty much every single smartphone is made in China. Regardless of brand, major or minor, "Western" (Apple, Microsoft/Nokia, rump-Nokia, Alcatel, or low-ends like Blu, etc.), "Developed World Asian"(Samsung, LG, HTC, etc.), or Chinese (Huawei, Oppo, OnePlus, etc.) as the "manufacturer".
Many by the same contract manufacturers in China. And no, that "Designed by Apple in California" or "Google Nexus" branding and supposed oversight does not guarantee that spying firmware and hardware can't get into some subset of phones.
It's pathetically hilarious when legislators or "patriotic citizen" low information types rant about evil Chinese companies making the products and demand only 'Murrican brands.
"One aspect of its refreshed strategy is to have two co-presidents, with two distinct strategies for China and the rest of the world."
This should have been the strategy from the beginning. The Chinese domestic market and the global market are vastly different. Cheap unmaintained crap with a glossy UI painted over a broken core does great in China, but Westerners hate it.
Similarly, the "clean" UI preferred by Westerners is hated in Asian countries, especially China.
Moto declined because its customers began seeing evidences of "Chinaficiation" - Lenovo fired Motorola's applications team who knew how to make "value add" additions to Android without falling into the "Touchwiz Trap", and then continued with a rapid-fire string of early EOLs from a manufacturer whose recent successes in the West entirely were due to a reputation of "affordable but not crap with rapid updates".
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I recently purchased a MotoX Pure Edition and MotoG Third generation and most of the is is still true. The MotoE is reported to be a pretty good entry-level android phone.
- Shipping fairly high-end kit, though perhaps not always the latest and greatest
- Very good power efficiency (for Android)
- A lack of the excessive amount of crapware you get on most phones; only the bare minimum the carrier forces on you
- A close-to-vanilla Android experience
- Great build quality and premium feel
- Reasonable prices - they were never the most expensive in the marketplace
- Generous battery capacity -- which, when combined with the power efficiency of their tuned SoCs, led to awesome battery life without any external batteries or extended batteries
Hopefully Lenovo doesn't go the route they did with the Thinkpad line and totally ruin the quality.