Google to Oust Motorola Mobility Chief, Replace With One of Its Own: Report

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Just a few weeks after winning the U.S. government’s approval for its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a new report says Google will replace sitting Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha with one of its own top executives as soon as the deal goes through.
Google aims to tap Dennis Woodside as Jha’s replacement, according to anonymous sources who spoke with Bloomberg News. Woodside has spent most of the past decade working in Google’s ad sales departments focused on Europe and the Americas. Woodside left his position in ad sales when Google announced the Motorola deal last August, Bloomberg reports.
Google spokeswoman Niki Fenwick declined to comment on the report, as Motorola’s acquisition has not been closed.
Motorola had a few more words to say, although it didn’t confirm nor deny the report. “Sanjay is fully engaged, focused on running the business and getting the deal closed,” said Motorola spokeswoman Becki Leonard in an e-mail.
The report comes after what seems like a slam dunk acquisition for Google, after both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Union just recently granted approval of the Motorola deal, citing no reason for antitrust concerns. Currently, Google is awaiting approval in a handful of other countries, including China and Israel, before the deal can fully go through.
But the potential replacement of Motorola’s Jha with a Googler could raise competitive concerns from Google’s other smartphone partners. As the Android OS is an open platform, hardware manufacturers are free to load Google’s software on their phones (provided the hardware companies abide by a certain set of stylistic guidelines). To date, no one company has been seen as Google’s preferred partner in Android phone manufacturing.
The Motorola deal could change everything. Google could give preferential treatment to its own device division, treating its other partners as secondary or even leaving them out in the cold. Google had initially pledged that it wouldn’t treat Motorola any differently from any other hardware partner. But it can’t replace any of its other partners’ CEOs.
This has to be unwelcome news to companies like HTC, Samsung and LG, all of which have placed big bets on Android as the operating system to take on Apple’s iOS. It seems discordant with Google’s initial reasoning for the acquisition: to secure Motorola’s treasure trove of patents.
Buying Motorola was a protection play that could shield Google in ongoing litigation beween itself, Microsoft, Apple and a host of other companies. “Having the portfolio will keep Android an open and vibrant platform, one that lots of companies can take advantage of,” said Google chief legal officer David Drummond in a conference call when the acquisition was first announced.
Installing a Google-bred leader in a newly acquired company, then, could signal a sea change of how the company will run post-acquisition — a more integrated business, not the separate one first trumpeted by CEO Larry Page last August.