Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside told employees last week that he will leave the company March 31 to take a position as chief operating officer at Dropbox. His announcement comes on the heels of Google’s decision to sell Motorola Mobility’s device business to China’s Lenovo. Woodside says he knows he is leaving the company in good hands.
“Lenovo will bring it the scale it deserves,” he said in a letter to employees. “I have no doubt the two companies together will be a force for good in the mobile industry.” Together, Lenovo and Motorola will the world’s #3 smartphone maker, behind Samsung and Apple. Last week, Lenovo told analysts that it expects to turn the money-losing Motorola handset unit around within a few quarters.
Woodside worked at Google for years before taking over Motorola Mobility. He succeeded Qualcomm veteran Sanjay Jha as head of Motorola Mobility when Google acquired the business. Jha had overseen the separation of Motorola’s handset and infrastructure businesses, and its eventual sale to Google for $12.5 billion.
Two years later, Google is selling Motorola Mobility for just $2.9 billion, exclusive of the company’s valuable patent portfolio. Longtime Google executive Jonathan Rosenberg will become chief operating officer of Motorola Mobility when Woodside vacates the CEO position. In addition, Google’s Nikesh Arora will remain executive chairman of the Motorola Operating Board, and continue to oversee strategy.
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