R
Robert Nazarian
Guest
Sometimes the tech world surprises us, and yesterday’s announcement that Google sold Motorola to Lenovo was just another example. At the same time, let’s not forget that the same people that were shocked yesterday were almost equally as shocked when Google bought Motorola for a lot more than they sold them for. Now that Google decided to divorce so quickly, it almost seems as if this marriage was a result of a drunken Las Vegas weekend. Or maybe both parties had the right intentions, but just like with many marriages, they don’t always work out. So you part ways, and keep the stuff that you want and move on. That’s exactly what Google did.
So why did Google buy Motorola in the first place? Was it the patents? Everyone seems to think so, but if that was the case, couldn’t they have just bought the damn patents? I am sure patents were part of the equation, but Motorola was an American innovative company that had a lot of talent. Google knew of things that Motorola was working on long before we reported on them (ie modular phones), and they probably thought the organization would make a great fit. However, Google was never a hardware company, so they allowed it to run separately.
Now I know that a lot of people believe that Motorola really didn’t run separately even though Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside, as well as former Android Chief Andy Rubin, emphatically argued the fact. Did Google have an influence? Probably a little, but the bulk of it was from Dennis Woodside (a former Google employee), who became the CEO shortly after the takeover. Back in 2012, Andy Rubin told The Verge that Google was building a firewall between the two companies and he had no idea what Motorola was working on. I know I am in the minority when I say that I really don’t think Google had a big influence on the Moto X. I am a longtime user of Motorola phones. From the early 90′s up until late 2011, Motorola was the only brand of phone you would find in my pocket. To me, the Moto X had “Motorola” written all over it. Sure, there were some influences like incorporating “Okay Google Now,” but the hardware was Motorola. Even the software seemed like a natural evolution for Motorola. Sure, it’s a close-to-stock Android experience, but let’s not forget that Motorola phones have sported a pretty much stock Android user experience since at least Ice Cream Sandwich. Even their Gingerbread build was fairly stock Android, at least the UI was. Motorola was always about the add-ons, but they never really fooled around with the UI in itself. No one loved Blur, but Blur was about a bunch of social widgets, and the launcher was pretty much left alone.
Let’s face it, Google owned Motorola so there had to be influences, I just don’t think Google designed the Moto X for Motorola like people made it out to be. Google’s biggest help came in funding. Their funding gave Motorola the ability to assemble the Moto X in the U.S. and offer so many customizations. This is something Motorola would not have been able to achieve without Google’s help, but I do believe the “Moto X” concept was their long term vision even before Google..
So why did Google sell off Motorola? Most marriages aren’t all that successful when the spouses are separated. Motorola continued to lose money and Google’s vision of hardware had shifted. Smartphones, as they are today, are officially a commodity. Samsung and Apple control the market, and the others pick up the scraps. At this point in the game, no one is going to put a dent into Samsung or Apple, unless either or both companies make a serious mistake. That may or may not happen anytime soon, so why bet on it?
Google’s vision is the next big things in hardware like wearables, home automation, robots, and whatever else they are cooking up. Motorola just didn’t fit into this category. Or shall I say “most of Motorola” didn’t fit. Google retained Motorola’s Advanced Technology Group, of which we have only heard about recently. It’s the team that has been working on modular smartphones called Project Ara, among other things. The Advanced Technology Group makes a great fit with Google’s forward thinking. Throw in the recent Nest purchase, and you can see that Google is committed to investing heavily in the next generation of hardware. Google didn’t buy Nest for thermostats, they bought them for the product team that will hopefully help cultivate unique products.
So Google and Motorola had the right intentions with their marriage, but Google decided to keep the “stuff” that it felt was the most valuable and let the rest go. Now don’t fool yourself into thinking that Samsung demanded this or they were going to leave Android for Tizen. Motorola was never a threat to Samsung, and if Samsung really demanded that Google get rid of Motorola, they sure wouldn’t be happy today knowing that Google retained Project Ara. So it’s not like Google is completely out of the smartphone business, but who knows, maybe Google will sell Project Ara to Samsung, which would mean there was some sort of talks on the subject.
I still say Samsung or no Samsung, the Google-Motorola marriage ended because there wasn’t a future. It seemed kind of cool at first, but if you think about it, it was never a match made in heaven. Most marriages aren’t. In the end, Google did what every person does when evaluating their partner. You look at them and decide whether there is a future or not. Google decided there wasn’t, and felt Motorola would be better off with another spouse (Lenovo). They just made sure they got to keep the Porsche and the speedboat: the Advanced Technology Group, and yes, the patents.
Come comment on this article: Why did the Google-Motorola marriage end so quickly?
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