Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility officially closed after nine months of regulatory review. Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha resigned, replaced by Google’s Dennis Woodside as the new head of the combined company.
In announcing the close, Woodside laid out the vision for what Motorola would become under Google:
Motorola literally invented the entire mobile industry with the first-ever commercial cell phone in 1983. Thirty years later, mobile devices are at the center of the computing revolution. Our aim is simple: to focus Motorola Mobility’s remarkable talent on fewer, bigger bets, and create wonderful devices that are used by people around the world.
Google CEO Larry Page cautioned against expecting near-term results, framing the deal as a long-term investment:
It’s a well known fact that people tend to overestimate the impact technology will have in the short term, but underestimate its significance in the longer term. Many users coming online today may never use a desktop machine, and the impact of that transition will be profound.
