Larry Page talks about Motorola’s future in new interview
None other than Google‘s Larry Page recently had a nice conversation and interview with the folks at Wired, and we heard some neat comments. Talks about Google+, social media, Android of course, and lots about Motorola. Last year Google purchased Motorola Mobility largely for their patent portfolio, but in the interview Larry gently talks about the acquisition, and what is in store for Motorola’s future.
Motorola doesn’t just have a large portfolio, they also have extensive history in the mobile landscape. While they’ve been sliding in the Android world to the likes of Samsung, things are about to get really exciting for the company. During the interview Page made it very clear that even though Google’s idea behind Motorola from the start was “running it independently”, the new CEO Dennis Woodside (former Googler) wants to be “disruptive” in their hardware designs.
The conversation initially started on the extensive patent portfolio but quickly changed directions when Page mentioned how they wanted to proceed with Motorola. Stating they plan to see Motorola take a lead role in the mobile landscape as a whole, not just Android. Interestingly enough while the RAZR HD and RAZR M are nice phones, they all were released without much input from Google. Wired mentions, and Page confirms, that all their devices currently available were “already in the pipeline” and don’t have any of Google’s influence.
“As we said when we acquired Motorola, we’re running it independently, and Dennis Woodside is in charge. But that’s very much what we want to do with Motorola and what Dennis wants to do. There’s a lot of room for innovation in hardware. The phones we use now have glass that everyone worries will break if they drop the device. Five or 10 years from now, that will be different. There’s going to be a lot of change.” — Larry Page
Ever since Woodside took over Motorola we’ve been seeing gradual changes. They’ve slowly turned their Blur UI into a more stock Android look, especially with Jelly Bean. They’ve moved to on-screen navigation keys (which was originally the plan) and their update turnaround seems steadily improved. During the DROID RAZR HD launch they spoke about “the new Motorola” and we have a feeling that’s coming quick. We’ve seen a few reports that Google and Motorola are working together on a cutting edge, next-gen set of phones and tablets called the X-Phone and the X-Tablet — and hopefully we’ll be seeing more of both soon.
With Motorola’s awesome hardware getting the attention to detail and combined efforts from Google, things can only improve. We look forward to seeing their next array of smartphones, and I’m sure you all do too. What do you want to see from Motorola now that Google’s in charge?