Google is selling Motorola to Lenovo, Project Ara and patents to stay with Google

[TopWargamer]

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/29/5358620/lenovo-reportedly-buying-motorola-mobility-from-google

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/29/5359068/google-keeping-motorola-advanced-technology-group-project-ara-phone

 

[THREAD UPDATED]

 

Regarding the Motorola acquisition:

Google is selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, giving the Chinese smartphone manufacturer a major presence in the US market. Lenovo will buy Motorola for $2.91 billion in a mixture of cash and stock. Google will retain ownership of the vast majority of Motorola's patents, while 2,000 patents and a license on the remaining patents will go to Lenovo. At the deal's closing, Lenovo will pay Google $660 million in cash and $750 million in stock, while the remaining $1.5 billion will be paid out over three years.

 

Regarding Project Ara:

Google's blockbuster $2.9 billion sale of Motorola Mobility to Lenovo won't include the Advanced Technology and Projects group led by former DARPA director Regina Dugan.  The news was confirmed today on a conference call with Lenovo, and sources familiar with the matter say the group will be integrated with Google's Android team, where Dugan will report to Sundar Pichai but maintain a more independent role.

 

Okay, so after reading through some of the comments, I can now see why Google sold off Motorola: They (Google/Motorola) were losing millions of Dollars every month since the acquisiotion and Google got to keep most of the patents from Motorola. Around 2,000 other patents were obtained by Lenovo during the acquisition.

 

One major thing though: Google is keeping Project Ara, which was Motorola's own Phoneblocks phone, aka a modular phone. If Google wanted to keep that, that means that they're only planing to continue its development, although it would have been continued either way. Who knows, maybe Project Ara will turn out to be the next flagship Nexus phone (I know there's a rebranding coming soon).

 

What do you think Google is planning to do with all of these patents and Project Ara? What do you think Lenovo should do to Motorola to help them with their expanding US phone market? (The obvious is, of course, to keep the Motorola brand.)

[helping]

...well that was fast

 

didn't they just acquire them?

[MbV93]

Wow that's odd. They had just bought them!

[miyabwah]

Wow.... why google, why?

[cjeffcoatjr]

Well on the bright side now Motorola's stuff will be industrial

[Benjio]

Did they at least profit? Maybe they'll just start flipping whole companies like stocks.

[wng_kingsley7]

Well. Isn't that interesting..hope they can come up with those phone blocks still. Lenovo is pretty manly for acquiring Motorola off of Google.

[dizmo]

It makes perfect sense for Google to do this. A large part of buying Motorola was for their patents. Considering Motorola is losing money rather than making it, they may as well get rid of it. They're not seeing any profit from them.

[SpaceSquid]

So motorolas phones are going to be stronger than nokias now?

[MatheusSanzo]

They bought it because of their patents... And since they didn't won what they expect with it... I guess Motorola doesn't offer anything more to Google... Let's just hope that Motorola continues with great phones in the hands of Lenovo...

[TheMissxu]

Maybe that explains the super cheap moto x's

[EvilLemur]

well lenovo already makes phones maybe they want to expand into other markets if soo, im very excited! 

[LogicDeifying]

Isn't this because theres no more Nexus lineup or something?

[kuddlesworth9419]

Why the hell did Google buy Motorola anyway. 

[Lyons]

They probably have bigger ideas, I don't think they need to own a mobile platform. This will more than likely bring Lenovo's real introduction to the smartphone market which is pretty exciting.

[Suika]

...well that was fast

 

didn't they just acquire them?

Motorola had a lot of patents, Google got their patents, and now Motorola is burning money that Google could make with their Nexus line.

[OddlyShapedTree]

Motorola despite being a great company and coming out with great products, hasn't been that profitable. Google also makes no money by supporting a company that makes competing products,

[jrfox87]

I understand why Lenovo would want Motorola, they want to have a presence in the US smartphone market. It worries me though because Motorola was really starting to turn around and they had some good momentum building up, Now it becomes questionable whether that will continue under Lenovo especially since Lenovo hasn't really gotten anywhere with their own smartphones.

[OddlyShapedTree]

SOLD http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/29/5358620/lenovo-reportedly-buying-motorola-mobility-from-google

[SSOB]

Sold for 2.91 Billion

 

Farewell moto G and any motorola device for good...

[VSG]

Google is still keeping the patents, so it is a pretty smart, if not necessarily popular, business move. 

[winny3141]

What is Google turning into, a Private Equity Fund? Anyway, its still not as stupid as Cisco dissolving Flip Camcorders (I mean they didn't even sell of the company they just had it disappear!).

[techie]

http://technobuffalo.com/2014/01/29/lenovo-buys-motorola/

Google keep the patient portfolio.

Motorola get licence for whatever patients google didn't want, as well as the Motorola trademark and brand assets.

In short, google gutted Motorola for the patients, threw out the rest with the weekly garbage run.

[alchemist11]

Essentially, Motorola Mobility is (finally) dead. Eventually, Lenovo is going to re-brand the phones and entirely absorb what is left out of this deal, along with raising the prices and using cheaper materials. And who are we kidding, Google was losing money with Motorola selling premium phones for $300 - they weren't even trying to give you a better experience, rather using Motorola as a testing ground for their services in conjunction with the phone, hence they kept the patents. So much for Marques Brownlee thinking Motorola under Google would change the landscape of phones (again).

[flibberdipper]

Man, Google must not like Motorola very well...