Motorola Mobility employees have been bracing for job losses since Google's purchase of the ailing smartphone maker went through in May, and now those cuts have arrived in the form of a 20 percent reduction or 4,000 jobs worldwide.
The New York Times is reporting that Google has notified employees that it will be reducing its Motorola Mobility work force by 20 percent worldwide, with a third of the cuts falling within the United States.
Despite getting a second wind with its Android-powered Droid smartphones, Motorola Mobility is now lagging far behind Samsung in sales. While Google's purchase of the handset maker back in May is certainly about the more than 17,000 patents in the company's portfolio, but the search giant also appears focused on turning things around at the once-mighty cell phone giant.
In addition to the job cuts, new Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside plans to close a third of the company's 94 offices worldwide, exit "unprofitable" markets, entirely close the book on low-end devices and "focus on a few cellphones instead of dozens."
“We’re excited about the smartphone business,” Woodside, a Google sales veteran, explained. “The Google business is built on a wired model, and as the world moves to a pretty much completely wireless model over time, it’s really going to be important for Google to understand everything about the mobile consumer.”
Woodside and company will have their work cut out for them, especially for a company founded in 1928 whose name was once nearly synonymous with the cell phone, which Motorola first launched commercially in 1973.
Google has already ditched 40 percent of Motorola's executive staff, hiring new senior executives in their place. The search giant plans to reduce its presence in Asia and India, focusing research and development in three key locales: Chicago, Beijing and Sunnyvale, California.
What most everyone is expecting from "Googorola" obvious: To create smartphone and tablets from scratch, without the need for OEM partners. Google has denied cutting the throats of their Android partners, which include Korean manufacturer Samsung.
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