Motorola Mobility to be created January 4

Motorola today provided more details of its promised mobile division split. The new company, Motorola Mobility, will separate from its parent on January 4, just ahead of its CES presence a day later. A reverse stock split as part of the deal will give one share of the new company's stock for every eight owned in the original Motorola company, which will now be called Motorola Solutions.

Its timing may a deliberate choice to highlight new devices that could appear at the show, such as the Olympus or the Stingray tablet.

The split was originally planned over two years ago at a time when Motorola's phone business was considered a major drag on otherwise successful businesses for cellular networking equipment and other frequently enterprise-focused work.

Most of the interval has been spent bringing the mobile devices group back up to health, but the group has become relatively successful thanks to smartphoens and just this summer finally began restoring its shipment numbers after years of losing share. It was one of the hardest hit after the iPhone's release in 2007 as it had been focusing primarily on cheap phones like the RAZR and leaving its smartphone efforts to Windows Mobile. A decision to drop Microsoft and use Google's Android has been almost single-handedly responsible for its reversal in the past year.

It's unclear how the split will affect ongoing litigation both from and targeted at Motorola, including Apple's ITC complaint and countering lawsuits between itself and Microsoft. Most of these have focused on patents that would apply most to the new Motorola Mobility firm.

By Electronista Staff

Post tools:

TAGS :  

industry, Microsoft, Windows Mobile, Android, Motorola, lawsuits, mobile phones, Apple