Lenovo's "Love Affair" with Motorola Started in 2011

[dgstorm]

Google and Lenovo dropped a huge bombshell yesterday. Most os us never stopped to fathom that a sale of Motorola to Lenovo was even a possibility, let alone a practically done deal. However, as is usually the case in life, there's more to the story than we could see on the surface. If any of us had been a high-up exec at Google or Lenovo way back in 2011, we might have had a clearer picture of this possibility and been able to predict this outcome.

As it turns out, it could have been inevitable that the sale of Motorola to Lenovo would eventually happen. Lenovo has had a "secret crush" on Motorola since the time in 2011 when Google bought them. According to some new insider intel, Lenovo was one of the front-runners to buy Motorola back in 2011, but they got out-bid (to the tune of $12.5 Billion) by Google. Furthermore, Lenovo didn't want Motorola just for their patents. This was in stark contrast to all of other Motorola's "suitors" in 2011. At that time, those patents were a hot commodity which is what eventually drove the price out of Lenovo's reach. But Lenovo actually wanted Motorola for their handset division and a chance to compete in the mobile marketplace with a globally recognized brand name. Lenovo chairman and CEO, Yang Yuanqing said in an interview with the WSJ,

“This was a longtime love story.”

In fact, even after Lenovo lost the buyout of Motorola to Google, they still had their eye on the company. After the sale went through between Google and Motorola, Chairman Yang met with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and said,

"I told him if they really want to run a hardware business they could keep it. If they are not interested in the hardware business, they could sell Motorola to us."

Apparently Mr. Schmidt listened, because Google approached Lenovo around Thanksgiving of last year and the result was announced yesterday.

What's interesting about this merger is that Lenovo is fully committed to keeping Motorola in-tact and growing the brand-name further. Lenovo will reportedly not lay off any of Motorola's 3,500 employees.

Coincidentally, this isn't the first time Lenovo has been involved in a deal like this. A similar thing occurred with IBM. Lenovo was the overseas company which manufactured IBM's Consumer PC Division, including the ThinkPad line. When IBM decided to drop out of the consumer market and focus on their enterprise business, they sold their PC assets to Lenovo. Ever since then, Lenovo has been one of the only PC manufacturers to actually increase sales during the massive PC desktop slump over the past few years. If Lenovo can keep the same track record with Motorola, then we may soon see the once proud pioneer of mobile phones and other technology rise to prominence once again.

What do you think of this news? Good for Moto or bad for Moto?

Source: PhoneArena

 

[leeshor]

I don't know if it's good or bad. Google seemed to be doing good things with the Moto phones. It remains to be seen if Lenovo can maintain or improve on the momentum.

 

[kodiak799]

I'm skeptical they won't lay anyone off or move production out of the US. Profit wasn't a primary motivation for what Google was trying to do with Moto. I expect Lenovo to be much more focused on the bottom line.

 

[skostos]

Win win win

The outcome of this is going to be a big win for everyone. Even before google took over completely.. the razr series was killing. Maybe not bringing the looks and glammer of samsung or apple to the table.. but instead a strong focus on power and streamlining the way android works.. now we have a company that seems to be able to tweak cpus better than anyone, squeezing juice out of duel core processors that most of us didnt even know existed.. taking on a company that, in a time of quad core processors, just released what seemed to be an out dated phone the moto x, just based on specs alone.. however we have all seen how great this phone is.. not based on specs but based on mastered technology.. instead of making new tech and skimming the surface of its capabilities we have a group that tried to get what we were missing from the old tech we were about to move on from. Put them with lenovo and BAM.. They could prolly make the OG Droid as capable as the galaxy s4 if they wanted... And google still has all those patents.. how can anyone lose?

 

[cereal killer]

Chose "don't know"

If anyone can turn Motorola around it would be Lenovo, but what they did when they snatched up IBM isn't indicative of what they can do in the Mobile space. I don't know what's going to happen with Motorola now. This could turn out to be a huge success or it can fall flat on it's face. If I were an OEM I'd be a little, no a lot, concerned with Samsung's and Google's relationship.

Sony, HTC, LG, Moto should be concerned of whats going on between those 2 giants. I find this hard to believe this is all coincidence. I'm sure MSFT is wringing their hands figuring out how they can exploit this whole thing.

 

[dgstorm]

Poll Updated to add an "Other/Don't Know" option. Thanks CK!

 

[94lt1]

Chose "don't know"

If anyone can turn Motorola around it would be Lenovo, but what they did when they snatched up IBM isn't indicative of what they can do in the Mobile space. I don't know what's going to happen with Motorola now. This could turn out to be a huge success or it can fall flat on it's face. If I were an OEM I'd be a little, no a lot, concerned with Samsung's and Google's relationship.

Sony, HTC, LG, Moto should be concerned of whats going on between those 2 giants. I find this hard to believe this is all coincidence. I'm sure MSFT is wringing their hands figuring out how they can exploit this whole thing.

Exactly...people talk about google needing to get rid of moto so other manufacturers wouldn't see anything as biased...imho google and Samsung's relationship is already biased..

 

[jspradling7]

It's been said that a company's real value is it's employees. (and patents evidently) Good or bad could be as simple as who stays and who wanders off. The folks that designed the X are pretty sharp. Will they stay?

 

[Xfactorx316]

Exactly...people talk about google needing to get rid of moto so other manufacturers wouldn't see anything as biased...imho google and Samsung's relationship is already biased..

Couldn't agree more, but now that my daily driver is the Note 3 I'm ok with this biased relationship!

 

[FoxKat]

I'm skeptical they won't lay anyone off or move production out of the US. Profit wasn't a primary motivation for what Google was trying to do with Moto. I expect Lenovo to be much more focused on the bottom line.

^^ Perhaps the most poignant comment of all!

The outcome of this is going to be a big win for everyone. Even before google took over completely.. the razr series was killing. Maybe not bringing the looks and glammer of samsung or apple to the table.. but instead a strong focus on power and streamlining the way android works.. now we have a company that seems to be able to tweak cpus better than anyone, squeezing juice out of duel core processors that most of us didnt even know existed.. taking on a company that, in a time of quad core processors, just released what seemed to be an out dated phone the moto x, just based on specs alone.. however we have all seen how great this phone is.. not based on specs but based on mastered technology.. instead of making new tech and skimming the surface of its capabilities we have a group that tried to get what we were missing from the old tech we were about to move on from. Put them with lenovo and BAM.. They could prolly make the OG Droid as capable as the galaxy s4 if they wanted... And google still has all those patents.. how can anyone lose?

I agree with everything above except the red. I am between "on the fence", and "diametrically opposed" thereto.

Chose "don't know"

If anyone can turn Motorola around it would be Lenovo, but what they did when they snatched up IBM isn't indicative of what they can do in the Mobile space. I don't know what's going to happen with Motorola now. This could turn out to be a huge success or it can fall flat on it's face. If I were an OEM I'd be a little, no a lot, concerned with Samsung's and Google's relationship.

Sony, HTC, LG, Moto should be concerned of whats going on between those 2 giants. I find this hard to believe this is all coincidence. I'm sure MSFT is wringing their hands figuring out how they can exploit this whole thing.

Ditto to all but emphatically in alignment with the red above.

It's been said that a company's real value is it's employees. (and patents evidently) Good or bad could be as simple as who stays and who wanders off. The folks that designed the X are pretty sharp. Will they stay?

True...so true. When the ship "appears" to be either sinking, charting a different (questionable), course or being overtaken by pirates, the first to go are usually the most valuable as they are the most portable, they have the knowledge, resume, experience and mental fortitude to make it virtually anywhere. It's those less marketable which will usually hang on to "see what comes of it". Some will win big, rising to the top of what was previously dominated by those that fled, but others will go down with the ship. Personally, I'd be hard-pressed to not at least be sending out some rhizomes to see what the relative sweetness of soils in other lands are and to get an early foothold into the positions that will quickly fill up with the top brass if I were them.

In a edit and addition to this above, I think the name itself...Motorola versus Lenovo can play a HUGE role in the ultimate outcome. Public perception of the two names are extremely contrasting, at least in my experience and those around me. If I hear Motorola, the first though that comes to mind is...it works, first time and every time...dependability and durability. When I think of Lenovo, I think...yeah, that company that took the Thinkpad from the "Motorola-esque" level of industry respect and ran it into the ground. Given the choice to buy Motorola over the other big players...it's a relatively even playing field. Sure each has their pros and cons, but really none stands out as a wildcard or longshot pic. OTOH, Lenovo just feels like high risk laden with a coating of wet ice... I wouldn't want to walk on it for fear of breaking my neck.

 

[mardoon]

[h=3]Maybe Ashton Kutcher can save MOTO, But after the lack of support we got from the droid bionic. I am done with moto, which is kinda sad because my first love was droid1,droid2 & bionic.
Mardoon.[/h]

 

[jspradling7]

So you're the person that liked the bionic! : )

 

[kodiak799]

Sony, HTC, LG, Moto should be concerned of whats going on between those 2 giants. I find this hard to believe this is all coincidence. I'm sure MSFT is wringing their hands figuring out how they can exploit this whole thing.

That's a fair point, but one could just as easily look at some of the things Sammie has done (including building their very own OS) and say Sammie is looking more like a competitor of Google than a partner.

 

[AECRADIO]

I am far more concerned with the employment outlook on this deal. If Lenovo keeps the handset assembly here, then possibly, very little may change.
Then again, if Lenovo shuts the doors and moves everything to China or taiwan, then we lose, and more people are left out in the cold.
Being a computer business does not equate to handset knowledge, they share a few distant traits, but the core phone business is not tied only to an OS, you have an RF platform to deal with, and tying the RF subsytems together with the actual OS, GPU and control logic to make everything 'play' properly, as well as the ability to shut off unused options and capabilities that are either unused, or seldom used/needed.
I can only hope Lenovo maintains a footprint here, and keeps the already open doors, open. The future will be the deciding factor on how all of this plays out, I look for the best of the deal, and prepare for the worst.

 

[xeene]

Lenovo has been making phones for a while for Asian markets http://shopap.lenovo.com/in/en/smartphones/
It's just that they aren't allowed in North America. We will have to see, this might be a good kick in samsung's weak area(batteries/radios) as Lenovo can mass produce to a larger quantity then moto did by itself.