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Motorola Is Going To Bet The Farm On Android

Motorola is planning a massive overhaul of its mobile phone business. Among the changes? Layoffs and a complete re-focusing of its midrange handsets, where most of its sales are. Moving forward, Motorola is going to bank on Android to be its go-to mobile phone platform.

We've been hearing bits and pieces over the last few weeks about Motorola's plans for Android. First it was ramping up an Android team. Then it noted that it would have an Android handset in the market by the second quarter of 2009. Now we learn that almost all of Motorola's feature phones going forward are going to be based on Android.

The Wall Street Journal broke the story late last night. Motorola's new leader, Sanjay Jha, is set to announce the reorganization as early as tomorrow. According to the Journal, those changes include thousands of layoffs at the embattled maker of mobile phones. Motorola will also simplify and streamline the way it makes mobile phones. The biggest news is that Motorola's entire range of midtier devices will rely on Google's Android.

Motorola will continue to make low-tier phones for emerging markets and will use its own P2K platform for them.

What's also interesting is how Motorola plans to make changes to its line of smartphones. Motorola will continue to craft Windows Mobile smartphones for business users, but will likely seek to outsource the production of at least some of those phones.

Android is an unproven platform, but now that the G1 is available, it is sure to mature quickly. In the limited time I've spent with Android, I can say that it is an able platform and has a lot of potential. Perhaps Android can save Motorola after all...

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