It's Official: Google Is Now a Hardware Company

After months of government review and years of hardware futility, Google finally completed its purchase of Motorola. Now what?

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By Brad Stone and Peter Burrows

May 23, 2012 at 12:45 AM UTC

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This article is part of the May 28, 2012 issue of businessweek.

Last August, Google Chief Executive Officer Larry Page fulfilled a pledge made to one of his senior executives, a square-jawed former attorney named Dennis Woodside. Apple CEO Tim Cook had been trying to poach Woodside to make him Apple’s head of sales; Google had persuaded him to stay, in part by promising him a bigger job, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, but who asked not to be named because the discussions were private. Now it was time to make good.

Woodside says he was speaking with board member K. Ram Shriram when Page asked him to run Motorola Mobility, the company Google had just announced it was acquiring for $12.5 billion. “He said, ‘I know you’ve been looking for a challenge,’ ” Woodside recalls. “ ‘I want you to run Motorola. I think you’d be great at it. Can you let me know by tonight?’ ”