One's Aberration Is Another's Asset: Google Sells Motorola Phone Business to Lenovo

Positioning in the tech universe is becoming more complicated as the relative importance of tangible and intangible assets shifts. Developments based on innovation, geography and competitive strategy influence the acquisition or divestiture of intellectual property, human capital and physical products.

A few years ago, Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12 billion, thinking it might become the lynchpin of its efforts to compete with Apple and others engaged in the battle for technological service dominance. Motorola's hard assets were of potentially lower value to Google than some of its patents, especially given the intense maneuvering between Apple, Samsung and the Android alliance.

Those patents proved to be disappointing from a strategic standpoint and possession of its very own smartphone capability was less beneficial than originally hoped, as well.

Meanwhile, Lenovo, which had established itself as a global player by picking up IBM's Smartpad PC brand has found itself doing well in China, but facing skepticism in the rest of the world. The perception, fairly or not, was that most of its products were derivative and that without IBM's contributions, there was unlikely to be a lot of value-added. However, Lenovo has surprised some of those naysayers by building a credible business, especially in Asia. What it lacked was a global entry in the global smartphone market.

Thus, a match was made. Google is a buyer and seller of opportunistic pieces that enhance its core proposition as a provider, dispenser and enhancer of information. Lenovo is building a competitive device business. That it has bought someone else's discarded tech business - again - will raise the same doubts, but if the recent spate of assets swaps suggests anything, it's that what an enterprise does with its properties can be more important than what they are. JL

Roger Cheng reports in Cnet:

PC maker Lenovo, which has struggled for smartphone success outside China, gets an established global brand, while Google unloads a burden on its balance sheet and a source of tension.

Google is unloading Motorola Mobility onto Chinese PC maker Lenovo.
Google confirmed on its site that it has sold Motorola for $2.91 billion, consisting of $660 million in cash and $750 million in Lenovo shares, with the remaining $1.5 billion paid in the form of a three-year promissory note. Reuters earlier reported on the deal.
Lenovo gets the Motorola brand, as well as its portfolio of devices, including the Moto X and Moto G. In addition, it will also receive more than 2,000 patent assets, while Google will retain control of a majority of the patents it originally obtained when it acquired Motorola several years ago.
A deal instantly gives Lenovo, which has a thriving smartphone business in China but few other places, an established global brand. Google, meanwhile, will shed a business that has continually dragged down its profits.
The deal marks one of the worst investments in Google's history. In 2012, Google completed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. At the time, it was thought that the primary reason for the acquisition was the treasure trove of Motorola patents that would help Google defend it and its partners against Apple. The patents, however, have proven to be less than effective in warding off lawsuits, and much of the legal fighting as gone on between Apple and Samsung, with Google only tangentially related. Google and Samsung recently signed their own cross-licensing pact.
Troubled handset business
The handset side of Motorola, however, has always been a stress point between Google and its partners. While Google said it maintained a division between its Android group and the Motorola unit, other vendors have privately expressed irritation that a partner was also a competitor.
Google did legitimately try to revive the once vaunted Motorola brand with unique products, including the Moto X, which was built in the US and could be tweaked with different colors and covers, as well as the ultra-low-cost Moto G, geared toward emerging markets and lower-income consumers looking for a competitive smartphone.
Throughout the last year or so, Motorola has continually posted losses. In the most recent quarter, Motorola posted an operating loss of $248 million, wider than the year-earlier period. Google reports its latest results Thursday. Still, the move is a surprising one, given that Google has been moving toward becoming more of a hardware company. Beyond smartphones, the company is pushing its Google Glass headset and its Chromecast media dongle. It just purchased Nest for $3.2 billion to get into the smart thermostats and smoke detectors.
"This would be at odds with its recent push to hardware," said NPD analyst Stephen Baker. "Everybody was thinking they would get more hardware-oriented. This may signal a reversal."
Gaining a global brand
Lenovo, meanwhile, could conceivably jump-start its smartphone ambitions with the purchase of Motorola. As the inventor of the cell phone, Motorola has a rich legacy and a still well-known brand that Lenovo could exploit.
"The acquisition of such an iconic brand, innovative product portfolio and incredibly talented global team will immediately make Lenovo a strong global competitor in smartphones," Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing said in a statement.
Indeed, Lenovo actually has a strong smartphone business itself, but one that is largely limited to China. Still, the market is big enough that it ranked No. 5 among global smartphone vendors in the fourth quarter, seeing its share rise to 4.7 percent from 4.2 percent a year ago, according to Strategy Analytics.