Motorola was bought by Lenovo last year, and the deal closed in October of 2014. This was shortly after the search giant, Google had purchased the company. Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, but kept ATAP and the patents. Lenovo has since, been looking to integrate Motorola into their current business. As they are one of the larger smartphone makers out there, it was a bit of a daunting task. But if one Lenovo executive is correct, we could be seeing Motorola merge with Lenovo Mobile. And then Lenovo Mobile will vanish. Having Motorola take over manufacturing smartphones sold by Lenovo. It also appears that Motorola’s execs will be running the show. Which means we will likely see more vanilla Android devices from Lenovo. We’ve already begun seeing that with Lenovo’s Lollipop-based Android tablets.
Last week, ZUK announced their first smartphone in Shenzhen, China. It’s running Cyanogen OS. Now for those that don’t know, ZUK is a new company that is partially owned by a ton of other smartphone makers in China. With Lenovo being a 70% stake holder in the company. And the majority of their employees being former Lenovo employees. Lenovo is looking to use ZUK as their internet brand, and making mid-range smartphones for the entire world. While Motorola makes the high-end stuff.
With Motorola recently cutting a huge part of their staff in Chicago just a few weeks ago. One has to wonder if Lenovo is planning on moving Motorola out of the US and into China, more specifically, Shenzhen where they are located. The job cuts also signal a mediocre time for Motorola. While the Moto G has sold very well, ever since its existence in 2013, the Moto X hasn’t sold as well as the company had hoped. However, with Lenovo behind them now, and the new Moto X Style having top of the line specs in every category that could change. Lenovo is looking to make Motorola profitable, unlike Google, they did not buy the company to lose money hand over fist each and every quarter.
Interesting times over at Lenovo and Motorola right now. They both make some very interesting devices in the Moto X and the Yoga tablets. What will be interesting, is if Motorola will be in charge of making Windows tablets as well. Seeing as they have never really made anything using Windows, and always stuck to Android, in the smartphone world.