By Anna Prior
Motorola Mobility named Rick Osterloh as the company's president
and chief operating officer as the handset maker is in the process
of being sold by Google Inc. to China's Lenovo Group Inc.
Mr. Osterloh, a Silicon Valley veteran who has been leading all
product management at Motorola for the past two years, will report
to the Motorola operating board at Google until the Lenovo
acquisition is complete, Motorola said in a blog post on
Wednesday.
Mr. Osterloh replaces Dennis Woodside, who left Google and
Motorola to become operating chief at fast-growing online storage
company Dropbox Inc. in February.
Mr. Osterloh first joined the company seven years ago when
Motorola acquired Good Technology. He later went to Skype to
oversee design and products before the Internet phone company was
acquired by Microsoft Inc., according to the blog post.
Mr. Osterloh returned to Motorola two years ago and has "had a
key role in the company's reinvigoration," according to the blog
post.
The roughly $2.91 billion deal with Lenovo, announced in
January, unwinds the Google's costly move into smartphone hardware
after it acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in May 2012.
Google has said it would retain the vast majority of Motorola's
patent portfolio, a key motivation of the original transaction that
lets it defend phone makers that use Android software against
patent suits. Google's Android software powers the majority of the
world's smartphones.
"We are pleased to learn that Motorola has named Rick Osterloh
to lead Motorola Mobility, effective today," said Lenovo executive
vice president of mobile business group Liu Jun. "We're confident
in his ability to not only manage a smooth transition at Motorola
from Google to Lenovo but, also to lead the business forward for
continued growth."
Write to Anna Prior at anna.prior@wsj.com
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