Hasta La Gadget!

Google today sold Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. While many speculated that Google would release phones after it bought Motorola in 2011, it didn’t happen — Motorola remained a partner like other Android OEMs. Recently, Google acquired Nest, and TechCrunch has learned that Google has big plans for the team behind the connected device company.

Google will keep the Nest group intact inside the company. The new division will still work on hardware devices, but not necessarily thermostats or smoke detectors. In fact, Google would like Fadell to work on gadgets that make more sense for the company. Will it be a phone or a tablet? It’s unclear for now.

While Nest first became popular with its thermostats, Google didn’t buy the company for these devices. First and foremost, the company wanted to snatch the great product team.

Nest founder and CEO Tony Fadell used to work for Apple on the iPod and was a founding member of the iPhone development team. Many people working in hardware consider him one of the best executives that understand both hardware and software — he is comfortable working at the intersection of the two.

Moreover, Fadell managed to attract great Apple engineers when he started working on Nest. They wanted to follow Fadell’s plans and were good engineers. And that’s exactly what Google was looking for when it acquired Nest.

When it comes to budget, Google is willing to let the Nest team use as many resources as it needs. In other words, the company is getting serious about consumer hardware, and Motorola was just a false start.

Google will keep Motorola’s patents, and it seems pretty clear now that Google only wanted that from the get-go.

Acquiring Nest and selling Motorola now make more sense when you put these two things side by side. Something was missing with Motorola. With Nest, Google finally has the right team and mindset to create and produce gadgets.

As you guys might have heard by now, Lenovo recently confirmed that they would be acquiring Motorola Mobility from Google for close to $3 billion. Considering that Google bought the company for $12 billion back in 2011, this seemed like a huge discount, especially considering that their patents would also be transferred to Lenovo as well, but perhaps there could be a reason why Google sold Motorola so cheaply. It could be because that not everything will be going to Lenovo, as it was revealed during a brief conference call held by Lenovo that while they will be acquiring everything else, they will not be getting their hands on Moto’s Advanced Technology and Projects Group.

That particular group which is headed by former DARPA director, Regina Dugan, will instead be transferred over to Google’s Android team which is being led by Sundar Pichai at the moment. For those unfamiliar with the Advanced Technology and Projects Group, this is the team that has been responsible for some of Motorola’s more “out there” projects such as tattoo security sensors, authentication pills, and Project Ara, the modular smartphone concept that is being made into a reality as we speak. Perhaps with the backing and absorption into Google, these more “out there” projects by Motorola could start taking off.

Google Gets To Keep Motorola’s Project Ara original content from Ubergizmo.

The headline figures on the Google-Lenovo deal are brutal. Google spent $12.5bn to acquire Motorola Mobility back in 2011, and in 2014 it’s selling the company off to Lenovo for … Continue reading

Google has confirmed it is selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, with the Chinese company paying $2.91bn for the smartphone manufacturer. The deal, which is being positioned as giving Lenovo an … Continue reading

Less than two years after its acquisition, Google is ditching Motorola. Chinese electronics maker Lenovo is buying the hardware firm for close to $3 billion.