Google sells Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for 2.91B USD

A surprise move indeed. Google has sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for 2.91 billion USD. Lenovo was previously rumoured to be buying Nokia. Turns out, they were after another old giant.

Google was said to have picked up Moto (12B USD) for the patents to protect Android. It was initially feared that Google was going to give preferential to Moto treatment now it owns its own phone manufacturer. Whilst there were some privileges, that wasn’t always the case with Moto devices often not launching with the latest build that was available for Nexus and other Droids.

Lenovo isn’t just getting the phone business, but about 2000 Moto patents. Google also retains the rest.

We believe that Motorola will be better served by Lenovo – says Google.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25956284

Perhaps we might see MS sell off Nokia D&S once Nokia D&S manages to serve its purpose for them? (or not? Motorola unit has been costing Google a fair bit with their losses)

Larry Page says this does not signal a shift to Google’s hardware efforts.

What does it mean for Lenovo’s Android/Windows efforts?

Category: Nokia