Is Google Planning to Make Arora CEO at Motorola Mobility?
More evidence is building that Google will likely use Motorola Mobility as its personal manufacturing arm, once the acquisition is complete. The latest clue is the rumor that Nikesh Arora, senior VP and chief business officer at Google, will eventually head up Motorola Mobility. If it’s true, such a move would be quite telling of Google’s plans.
A gracious tip of the hat goes to Business Insider, which spread details about the alleged “internal rumor.” According to Business Insider’s sources, Arora “is thought to have been ‘agitating’ for a CEO role,” and Google may offer him this position instead of losing him to Yahoo!. With Motorola already laying off a considerable amount of staff, a top-level shakeup after a completed acquisition is likely to go smoothly, playing nicely into my predicted agenda, in which Google uses Motorola Mobility to build uniquely sexy and new Google phones.
If Arora’s CEO appointment comes to pass, it’s worth wondering how fast Motorola Mobility will start building and producing pure-Google phones with hardware and software integration. I would set a target somewhere inside the first half of 2013. It’s also worth asking whether Google would proudly proclaim these phones were “built by Motorola Mobility” or try and hide that fact. Plus, the fate of many Motorola-branded items (Droid, Xyboard, etc.) is unknown. It may not be finically viable for Motorola to continue to build Motorola-brand phones alongside Google’s elite phones. But one thing is certain: it’s definitely not all about the patents. Will Google build the first true super-slick Android device that really outshines the iPhone? I’m hopeful, and I think it’ll be coming soon.
