

THE VERDICT: Google-Motorola Will Be A Colossal Disaster* - SoftwareMaven
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-motorola-disaster-2011-8

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wanorris
Motorola has 19,000 employees and can't consistently turn a profit. These two
facts seem related in an obvious way, and this implies a way to turn a profit
on it.

Cherry pick all the best research and software folks and bring them into
Google, abandon MotoBlur and release devices with vanilla Android (thus
eliminating the need for said software folks), and streamline operations with
massive reductions in headcount. Possibly shutter unprofitable product lines
like feature phones entirely, and focus the company on things Google considers
strategic for them, i.e. Android phones and set top boxes.

Admittedly, Blodget is right that Google has no experience in performing this
kind of maneuver, so there are a lot of risks, but considering that they
bought a patent portfolio that happened to come with a company attached,
there's no real reason to be afraid of downsizing the company to a point where
Motorola can turn a decent profit and start growing again.

Or, as Blodget points out, they could just spin the company off as soon as
they can and wash their hands of the whole thing.

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jeffool
Most of the points seem to be "Google doesn't know hardware". This is a valid
point, but the article mostly reads like this one point repeated over and
over.

First, it discounts the fact that Google isn't inheriting a shell company;
those former Motorola employees? They're still there.

Second, so what if they don't already have a dedicated hardware factory
already? They've got a dedicated team, one that's proven. Danger, Inc.

[http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/11/andy-rubin-gets-
dange...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/11/andy-rubin-gets-danger-back-
together-at-google-to-work-on-android-hardware/)

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anigbrowl
Disagree. The companies' cultures are more similar than they might otherwise
appear; Motirola has a strong engineering heritage and a good hardware
pedigree but their software UI has been badly lacking. Not that the merger
will be easy, but a colossal disaster? I think not.

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rjd
You just made me realise it will be a total disaster. Because Google aren't
buying the entirety of Motorola, they are buying the cellphone/consumer
division of the company.

Hence if the clever ploys are true which John Gruber alluded too, then
motorola are smart. And being smart they have already moved the best talent
back to the other company "Motorola Solutions" and Google are buying a pile of
average to bad.

Plus I doubt Google is ready for the HR mess thats about to hit them. If
anyone here has been through a large restructure or merger then you can
appreciate just how disruptive and demoralising the process is. Productivity
and loyalty will plummet.

If you haven't been through a process like that go watch the movie "Office
Space" its a light hearted view of a dark subject, and is way to close to home
on many points.

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anigbrowl
Talent issue, no I don't think so. Google's a company where individual talent
matters a great deal, they're not oblivious to those issues. There will be a
big culture clash and you are right that there will be many HR challenges. I
worked as a contracter for Motorola (very briefly and many years ago) and can
relate to the problems Google will encounter...but that's well known about
Motorola. I don't agree that large mergers are always a failure; Ernst & Young
is still together and successful, even though there was a huge clash of
cultures there - it was literally a case of ne company being a Mac and one a
PC.

~~~
rjd
But if reporting is to be believed Google is struggling to hire and keep
talent, and there hiring approach has been heavily criticised for encouraging
'generic' and 'average' employees.

The entire truth behind that I can't comment on myself, but thats what goes
through my blogs feeds form time to time.

I know from every restructure I've ever been in the first casualty is the
talented staff. They don't hang around to mucked about, they are in demand so
they just flow somewhere where those issues don't exist.

But who knows, I guess there was a lot of sleepiness nights at Google before
this went ahead, so our conjecture would have already been through more solid
risk/benefit analysis than what a chat thread could offer.

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jigs_up
Writer makes good points. I find it hard to disagree.

