Motorola to shrink workforce by 20%

Motorola Mobility has told employees that it will lay off 20 percent of its work force and close a third of its 94 offices worldwide, the New York Times reports. One-third of the 4,000 jobs lost will be in the US. The company plans to leave unprofitable markets, stop making low-end devices and focus on a few phones instead of dozens, said Motorola's new CEO Dennis Woodside in an interview. 

In addition to the job cuts, Google has reduced Motorola management, letting go of 40 percent of its vice presidents. It will shrink operations in Asia and India, and centre research and development in Chicago, Sunnyvale and Beijing. It also hired new senior executives, such as Regina Dugan from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to head the unit Advanced Technology and Projects, former Amazon executive Mark Randall to run Motorola’s supply chain, and Gary Briggs, who ran consumer marketing at Google and now does so at Motorola. 

So far the takeover by Google does not appear to have given Motorola an edge among Android phone makers. A Motorola Mobility executive who recently left the company told the paper that if anything, it had become more difficult than before for Motorola to have impromptu collaboration with the Android team.