Regarding Motorola’s Google-Owned Future

Phil Goldstein, in a report for FierceWireless headlined “Motorola Exec: Product Strategy Won’t Change After Google Acquisition”:

Alain Mutricy, Motorola’s senior vice president of portfolio and product management, told FierceWireless in an interview here at Mobile World Congress that Motorola will not alter its plans once it comes under the Google “umbrella.”

This echoes Andy Rubin’s recent remarks from a few days prior, as quoted by The Verge:

Google’s Andy Rubin led the charge to acquire Motorola, but the Android boss won’t have anything to do with the company once the deal closes — he told reporters at Mobile World Congress today that he “sponsored” the acquisition but now has “nothing to do with it…. I don’t even know who’s running it.” […] Rubin said he was “painfully aware” of concerns, but stressed that Google has “literally built a firewall” between the Android team and Motorola. “I don’t even know anything about their products, I haven’t seen anything,” he said. “They’re going to continue building Motorola branded devices and it’s going to be the same team doing it.”

(The same team minus CEO Sanjay Jha, that is.)

Does anyone actually buy this? It’d be one thing if Motorola were doing well, or even if they were merely doing OK, but they’re not — they’re doing terribly. They’re losing money and are generating little revenue. What sense does it make for Motorola to stay the course? Larry Page is just going to say, “Welcome to Google, you guys just keep doing what you’ve been doing — losing money and making phones that don’t sell very well”?

I presume Google and Motorola executives are saying these things to assuage the fears of Motorola’s rival Android handset makers. But do any of them believe it?

Saturday, 3 March 2012