Just a week and a half ago, Google got their acquisition of Motorola Mobility approved by the European Commission and U.S. Department of Justice, putting Google’s spring 2011 purchase closer to completion. (Taiwan, China, and Israel still need to give their blessings on the acquisition before it becomes finalized.)

Today, Bloomberg reported that Sanjay Jha will be replaced as Motorola’s CEO by Google’s own Dennis Woodside. Woodside has played a number of roles in Google’s history, and one of the things he’s been tasked with most recently is overseeing the Motorola acquisition. Jha’s departure isn’t official yet, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see this swap out occur in the near future. However, Sanjay can’t be in too bad of a situation since Google has promised him $66 million in compensation once the deal goes through.

Promise of change is afoot, and now it’s just a matter of time until that change becomes a reality.

Our Take

Mr. Jha’s four year run as the CEO of Motorola’s mobile devices division has been a fairly successful one. Without Sanjay, Google’s Android platform might not be where it is today. After all, it was Motorola’s launch of the Verizon DROID platform that gave Android the attention it needed to become the popular mobile OS that it is today.

At the same time, there’s something about Motorola’s products that I still find a little lackluster. As sleek as the new DROID RAZR is, it’s still not a device that people would pick as their first choice out of all the Android devices that are available. Motorola seemed to almost admit that by releasing the RAZR MAXX (a slightly improved RAZR) just two months after the RAZR’s release. Part of the problem is, the original DROID ran an almost completely pure version of Android. Since then, Motorola has moved to their own skinned versions of Android, which have been heavily criticized for being sluggish and unnecessary. (Although, Motorola’s skin has gotten a lot better over the past year.)

To me, it also says something that even though Google’s Motorola acquisition was announced back in May, they still chose Samsung to create the Google branded Galaxy Nexus.

So that’s why I’m hopeful that Woodside will bring a fresh perspective to Motorola once he takes his place as the new CEO. Motorola has a strong history and some great potential that simply needs to be revitalized. Who knows, maybe we’ll even see Google switch to a Motorola manufactured device for their the next Nexus device.

Does this hint of change make you hopeful for Motorola’s future, or do you think there was no change necessary in the first place? Let me know what you think in the comments below!

 

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