Chinese personal computer giant Lenovo bought Motorola from Google for $2.9 billion in 2014 and has since allowed Motorola Mobility and Lenovo smartphones to co-exist.
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Osterloh added that the Motorola brand will live on as the name of a Lenovo subsidiary, and the famed Motorola logo will still adorn phones made by the company, although the blue Lenovo logo will be the primary brand.
A fateful day has arrived in mobile history, because Lenovo has announced that it will be will be phasing out the Motorola brand name later this year.
Cnet’s Roger Cheng broke the story in an interview with Motorola Chief Operating Officer Rick Osterloh. Future high-end smartphones are expected to use the Moto branding, while budget devices will use the Vibe brand. Exactly how long this will take, and when we will see our first Moto by Lenovo phone or Vibe series phone here in Australia isn’t clear, but it’s interesting times ahead for Lenovo and Motorola.
Early in the morning, we woke up to the sad news that Lenovo is planning to phase out the Motorola brand. Sadly, many consider Motorola to be a “tired” brand trying to resurrect itself, something like what Nokia was in 2013 and Blackberry is right now.
In honour of the great brand we’ve compiled all its best moments in the picture gallery above.
The move comes more than a year after Lenovo acquired Motorola Mobility in 2014. A famous name in mobile phones is going away. Lenovo reveals that the Motorola will not be completely wiped out. In addition to its Motorola purchase, the company is also diversifying sales with the acquisition of System X server operations from International Business Machines Corp.
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What’s perhaps ironic is that it was Apple’s ill-conceived partnership with Motorola on the Motorola Rokr E1 that helped convince Steve Jobs that Apple needed to go it alone in the smartphone business. Moto will continue to be the “up scale” brand in all markets, while Lenovo’s own “Vibe” will play the affordable/budget game.
