Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) figuratively admitted defeat in the phone business by selling Motorola to Chinese Lenovo group for about $3 billion, but that does not mean the company has pulled out from its other ambitious aspirations in hardware, primarily computerized eyeglasses, robots, and Internet-connected home appliances. The thought has been echoed by chief executive Larry Page, when announcing the Motorola deal in a blog post, he said “This does not signal a larger shift for our other hardware efforts.”
The CEO said that the “dynamics and maturity” of the wearable and home markets are very different from the smartphone industry. “We’re excited by the opportunities to build amazing new products for users within these emerging ecosystems.”
Google tried to match Apple
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) acquired Motorola to become more like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL); selling smartphones as well as the software to operate them, says a report from Bloomberg. The internet giant acquired Motorola for $12.5 billion in 2012, and the journey since then has not been easy. Google tried hard to make the acquisition fruitful, but no significant results came. For the year ended September, Motorola reported a loss of $797 million. The handset unit was unprofitable even before Google acquired it, and the purchase made no major improvements. In fact, for Google competing with handset makers does not make much sense as it was competing with its own customers that use its operating system.
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) might feel some relief by owning most of Motorola’s patents, and Regina Dugan (experimental technology group head) joining the company, but the company needs more than that to assuage the failed acquisitions.
How will Google make it work?
For its hardware projects, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) recently acquired companies like Nest and robotic powerhouse Boston Dynamics. Page sounded optimistic, when he said that the industry that Google is targeting doesn’t really exist, as of now, so the company won’t have to follow any powerful leader. The recently acquired companies are young, vibrant instead of loss making units, which require efforts to turn them around.
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) might be hoping to make its moves toward physical goods a success with the use of biggest strength: data. Each of the hardware projects from the company looks unrelated, but they could all be connected if they could provide the company with data for targeted advertising or anything else that the company feels could earn it revenues.
