Google CFO: "12 To 18 Months Of Product Pipeline" With Motorola
This week after Google's quarterly earnings statement for their financial Q4 2012, the company's Senior Vice President and CFO Patrick Pichette made it clear that their still relatively new ownership of Motorola includes no less than 12 months of product pipeline put in place before they got there. This means that while Google may very well be working to push Motorola in new directions in the future, it'll be a while before they've worked through the products Motorola already had prepared before they arrived. At the moment, Google has completed 120 days of ownership (or so) of Motorola – so there's quite a bit left to go.
The investor call took place (and may still be taking place depending on when you're reading the post you're in now) at http://www.youtube.com/googleir, that being Google using one of its other major products, YouTube, to make the full set of announcements public. The Question and Answer portion of the day included the CEO of the company Larry Page, CFO Patrick Pichette, and Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora. The Motorola point was spoken on by Pichette.
"Just a bit of color on Motorola – We're not in the business of losing money with Motorola. We're 120 days into this journey – and we've inherited 12 to 18 months of product pipeline. With product restructuring, it does take time for new product to show up. ... Be ready for a lot of fluctuation in our P and L [Profit and Loss Statements] over the next quarter." – Pichette
We've heard more than one affirmation from Google on how they'll be working with Motorola through the future, the last time being when Larry Page did an interview in which he discussed the fragile future the companies have with one another. This new bit if information reminds us that while Motorola is its own entity, Google does now own it, and they're not going to let Motorola run itself entirely without Google's direct influence. What that means figuratively almost matters more than what it'll mean literally, in this case, with Motorola's relatively solid past with hardware being what Google wants to keep through the future.
You'll see Google influencing the way Motorola phones present Android within the year, one way or another. We've already seen several Motorola device delivered in 2012 with a display-only front, these only having been delivered after Google's purchase was made public. When Google get the opportunity to take Motorola smartphones and tablets in a direction that's entirely Android friendly insofar as they act as the perfect pure-Android device, that's when the magic happens. Cross your fingers for the 12 month end of the 12 to 18-month pipeline mentioned by Pichette – Nexus on the way!