Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was a multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States (U.S.). After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company was divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011. Motorola Solutions is generally considered to be the direct successor to Motorola, Inc., as the reorganization was structured with Motorola Mobility being spun off.

Motorola designed and sold wireless network equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. Its business and government customers consisted mainly of wireless voice and broadband systems (used to build private networks), and, public safety communications systems like Astro and Dimetra. These businesses (except for set-top boxes and cable modems) are now part of Motorola Solutions. Google sold Motorola Home (the former General Instrument cable businesses) to the Arris Group in 2012.

In June 2000, Motorola and Cisco supplied the world's first commercial GPRS cellular network to BT Cellnet in the United Kingdom. The world's first GPRS cell phone was also developed by Motorola. In 2002, Motorola introduced the world's first wireless cable modem gateway which combined a high-speed cable modem router with an ethernet switch and wireless home gateway. In 2003, Motorola introduced the world's first handset to combine a Linux operating system and Java technology. In 2007, Motorola acquired Symbol Technologies to provide products and systems for enterprise mobility solutions, including rugged mobile computing, advanced data capture, and radio frequency identification (RFID). In January 2011, Motorola split into two separate companies. August 15, 2011, Google announced that it would purchase Motorola Mobility for about $12.5 billion. On November 17, 2011, Motorola Mobility stockholders “voted overwhelmingly to approve the proposed merger with Google Inc”. May 22, 2012: Google announces that the acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. has closed, with Google acquiring MMI for $40.00 per share in cash. ($12.5 billion). Oct 30, 2014: Google sells off the Motorola Mobility to Lenovo. Google will maintain ownership of the vast majority of the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio, including current patent applications and invention disclosures. As part of its ongoing relationship with Google, Lenovo will receive a license to this rich portfolio of patents and other intellectual property. Additionally Lenovo will receive over 2,000 patent assets, as well as the Motorola Mobility brand and trademark portfolio. On October 30, 2014, Lenovo finalized its purchase of Motorola Mobility from Google