Google Inc announced on Wednesday it is selling the Motorola Mobility Home unit to global communications technology company ARRIS Group Inc in a cash and stock deal valued at US$2.35 billion.
“This transformational combination of two complementary businesses will create a leading end-to-end provider of today’s video, data, and voice products and tomorrow’s next-generation IP-based broadband products,” ARRIS chief executive Bob Stanzione said.
ARRIS expected the acquisition of Motorola Home to enhance its ability to provide innovative products and services for delivering video to homes.
Internet and cable service providers Comcast Corp and Time Warner Inc were the two biggest ARRIS customers prior to the acquisition, which would give the company a diverse, international customer base.
LICENSING
The deal also comes with a “generous patent portfolio” and technology licenses between the companies, according to ARRIS executives.
Key ARRIS product areas include in-home boxes for routing Internet data, cable video, online telephone calls and other services.
“Devices in the home are increasing,” company executives said in a conference call with analysts. “There will always be a device in the home; it will look different, it will evolve, and we will always participate in that transition.”
ARRIS and Motorola Home together will have more than 500 customers in 70 countries.
“These two great companies are really going to be a game-changer in the world of broadband,” Stanzione told analysts at the close of the call.
Google has been shedding unwanted Motorola Mobility assets since it completed its US$12.5 billion takeover of the company in May of this year.
PATENT GRAB
The Internet giant’s purchase of Motorola Mobility was seen as a grab for patents to protect Google’s Android mobile operating system from legal attacks.
Google acquired 17,000 patents with the purchase of Motorola Mobility and has been strengthening its patent portfolio in the fight for dominance in the booming smartphone and tablet market.
Motorola Home boss Marwan Fawaz said his unit and ARRIS share a vision of Internet or cable services and products playing growing roles in people’s lives.
“The combination of our solutions, expert technologists and roadmaps promises to transform how service providers deliver the smart, simple connected home to consumers throughout the world,” Fawaz said.
REALIGNMENT
The sale of Motorola Home came shortly after Google announced other deals to sell manufacturing operations of its Motorola Mobility unit in China and turn over management of a plant in Brazil to Singapore-based Flextronics International Ltd.
The firms said last week that Flextronics would acquire Motorola’s manufacturing operations in Tianjin, China, and assume management and operation of its plant in Jaguariuna, Brazil.
Motorola Mobility is also shutting down most of its operations in South Korea as part of a move to consolidate research.
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