Motorola’s CEO, Dennis Woodside, has been taking part in plenty of interviews lately. He’s in the, somewhat awkward position of being the CEO of a manufacturer owned by Google. It’s awkward because Google owns them, but they are not showing them any favoritism. Although some people might say otherwise. This interview was with the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. He was asked why Motorola couldn’t st stand as a stand-alone company, Woodside responded that Google offers Motorola a boost it didn’t have before the acquisition:
“Google gives Motorola a couple things. One is that willingness to have a long-term vision that’s bold, and really encouraging us to have that vision, and giving us the capital to make the transition.
You also have to (believe in) the long-run value of having everybody connected on high-quality devices that can access all the services that we’re used to. Only Google has that long-term mindset.”
Many people have thought that Motorola would be an extended arm of the search giant, Dennis states that’s not the case:
“Although Google is our shareholder, Motorola is going to operate independently.
Our (technology) systems are separate. That actually imposes costs on us. We’d love to be able to leverage Google’s data centers and internal tools. But because Android is a platform available to all (phone makers), if we had any IT access, that independence could be breached. We get the code for the next-version Android at the same time as everybody else.
Sometimes it’s frustrating, because you actually want to do more.”
Woodside was also asked what is the biggest headache with incorporating the two companies, the CEO touched on these expectations:
“The expectations are really high. You have people at Motorola who expect, now that Google owns us, we’re going to do everything together. You have outsiders who expect a completely different software or hardware strategy because the companies are now together.
Another challenge is more internal. Managing the cultural shift from a company that had been very engineering-led and driven, but not as consumer-led and driven as we want to become.”
You can read the rest of the interview over on the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette’s website.