Just months after Google completed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, the company has decided to look into a restructure of sorts, and will shave off 20 percent of its work force in order to focus on “a few” higher end devices rather than “dozens” according to Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside.
It’s nothing new to the industry. HTC stopped making low-end phones back in June in order to commit more of its resources on the higher-end market as well. RIM is in the middle of its own restructuring efforts and is dropping 5,000 employees with a plan to focus on fewer devices once BlackBerry 10 launches in 2013. Nokia did a similar refocus back in June and is currently on the upside. So why not Motorola too?
A third of the job cuts are reported to be coming from its US operations. Motorola will also be dialing down its operations in Asia and India, as well as its R&D spending in Chicago, Sunnyvale, and Beijing.
Woodside said that Motorola wants to re-invigorate its image with things like voice recognition that can determine who is in a room, better cameras, and longer-lasting batteries. He also reiterated the commitment to keep Google and Motorola separate, insisting that Motorola will compete fairly for the ability to produce its Nexus branded “pure Android” devices. An unnamed former Motorola executive backed up Woodside’s description, saying that the merger has in fact made it more difficult for Google and Motorola to spontaneously collaborate on Android projects.