Google’s Shareholder Meeting: CEO Larry Page Calls In Sick, Google Maintains Motorola Will Be Kept Separate
Ever since Google bought Motorola last year for $12.9 billion, there has been constant speculation surrounding the merger and exactly what Google plans to do with the flailing company. It’s not like Google has been tight lipped on the subject. They’ve been pretty upfront when it comes to their intentions with Motorola, saying from the very beginning that they would keep Motorola functioning independently and as a separate entity. No, they’re not going to release a slew of Nexus devices, and no, Motoblur isn’t going anywhere.
During their annual shareholders’ meeting today at Google HQ in Mountain View, CA, this sentiment was reiterated yet again. This time, by Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette who said that Motorola would “stay on its own battlefield” and that we shouldn’t expect full integration anytime soon. Google’s Eric Schmidt emphasized, “We bought Motorola for the sum of the patents, the products, the people, the innovation.” Oh yeah — and the patents (needed to said twice).
In other news, Larry Page had to sit out this shareholders’ meeting due to a condition affecting his voice and in turn, also wont be speaking at next week’s Google I/O developer conference. But the meeting continued on just fine without him with a split-stock plan for the company being voted in, although, Google doesn’t expect it to go into effect until year’s end at the earliest.
[Reuters 1, Reuters 2 | Yahoo News: AFP]