Motorola Mobility Names Osterloh as President, Operating Chief -- 2nd Update

By Anna Prior 

Motorola Mobility named Rick Osterloh as the company's president and chief operating officer as the handset maker is in the process of being sold by Google Inc. to China's Lenovo Group Inc.

Mr. Osterloh, a Silicon Valley veteran who has been leading all product management at Motorola for the past two years, will report to the Motorola operating board at Google until the Lenovo acquisition is complete, Motorola said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Mr. Osterloh replaces Dennis Woodside, who left Google and Motorola to become operating chief at fast-growing online storage company Dropbox Inc. in February.

Mr. Osterloh first joined the company seven years ago when Motorola acquired Good Technology. He later went to Skype to oversee design and products before the Internet phone company was acquired by Microsoft Inc., according to the blog post.

Mr. Osterloh returned to Motorola two years ago and has "had a key role in the company's reinvigoration," according to the blog post.

The roughly $2.91 billion deal with Lenovo, announced in January, unwinds the Google's costly move into smartphone hardware after it acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in May 2012. Google has said it would retain the vast majority of Motorola's patent portfolio, a key motivation of the original transaction that lets it defend phone makers that use Android software against patent suits. Google's Android software powers the majority of the world's smartphones.

"We are pleased to learn that Motorola has named Rick Osterloh to lead Motorola Mobility, effective today," said Lenovo executive vice president of mobile business group Liu Jun. "We're confident in his ability to not only manage a smooth transition at Motorola from Google to Lenovo but, also to lead the business forward for continued growth."

Write to Anna Prior at [e-mail]

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires